Posts Tagged ‘best practices’

Secure Your Home

Despite the fact that Ryan and Melanie live in a safe area, they’ve have their truck broken into, home buglarized, and garage broken into…all within the same few months. After three break-ins, however, they make the decision to increase their home security. Robberies are increasing due to the faltering economy, despite the fact that summer is usually when most buglaries occur. There are a few simple things Ryan and Melanie made to help their home be more secure and less of a target for those looking for a home to break into. Since making these changes, they have not had anymore problems:

Take Stock of Your Home: How long has it been since you took a good look at your home from the outside? Step outside and look at it for a few minutes. What would a burglar see? Do you have outdoor lighting? Do you have expensive items such as computers or tvs visible from the outside? Does your garage sit open most of the day? Have trees or bushes grown up around your doors thus making it easier for would-be robbers to enter unseen? Make a list of changes you need to make and start on them right away.

Change Your Bad Habits: Many people, believe it or not, simply forget or choose not to lock their doors when they leave the house. Or, many people leave their garage open while they run a “quick errand.” Another mistake people make is to leave valuables sitting inside their car, plainly visible. Often, criminals or vandals with simply try their luck and see if a doorknob turns. If it will, they will walk in and quickly take what they see. If not, more then likely they will move on. Burglars are looking for ease and efficiency. By simply getting in the habit of locking your doors, closing the garage door, and bringing valuables in from your vehicles, you will better protect your home. Ryan and Melanie realized at least two major security issues: Ryan had been leaving his laptop in his truck and both were constantly leaving the garage door wide open. After changing these bad habits, they have seen far fewer security issues.

Fortify Your Doors: Doors are the gateway to your home. Consider getting stronger doors, with more secure frames. This will make the doors much more difficult to simply kick in. But, in addition to the critical dead-bolt, make sure it’s a very secure and quality dead-bolt. The throw bolt should be longer than one inch. If it is not, you should replace it. Make sure your hinges are on the inside of the door and consider having your door swing outward instead of in. It’s much harder to kick in a door that swings outward. More so, install dead-locks on all doors to deter potential criminals. This type of lock does not have an exterior keyhole, making it impossible for burglars to pick the lock for entry. Just seeing the lock there will help to deter a criminal because of the greater difficulty.

Check Windows and Sliding Glass Doors: You can have the greatest locks in the world on your door, but if your front room window is sitting wide open with a brand new laptop sitting on the table by the window, you’ll still have a problem. Windows should have locks on them, especially the most accessible ones such as ground floor windows. If you cannot afford new windows at the moment, using a dowel in the frame to make it difficult to slide them open will at least help. For your sliding glass doors, you can install keyed locks for the top and bottom of the door. In addition, you can have installed a special panel inside the sliding glass door or windows which won’t allow the door or windows to be broken.

Be Safe: In addition to the above changes, Ryan and Melanie organized a Neighborhood Watch program on their street. The neighbors tell each other when they are going to be out of town and report any suspicious cars or people to each other. This helped the entire community and neighborhood feel more secure while decreasing buglarly rates.

Marty Craigs is an expert on home security and related topics. He also does writing and research on a number of related topics, such as security fasteners, products, and other hardware. Visit http://www.securityscrew.com/ to learn more about security, tamper resistant, and tamper proof screws and read about other security products.