Why should you bother with preventive home security measures? Because of one simple fact — most home break-ins are crimes of opportunity.
Burglars don’t usually do much advance planning for specific break-ins. They pick out any target that seems to be easy. If closer examination reveals that your home is not an easy target, they just move on.
Here are 8 things you can do to prevent your home from looking like a soft target.
1. All doors and windows should be plainly visible from the street and to your neighbors. Large shrubs and hedges which hamper visibility make it easy for burglars to do their job.
That’s why any bushes and shrubs that are within four feet of sidewalks, driveways, doors, etc should be kept under a couple of feet high. Those within four to eight feet should be trimmed to not more than four feet high.
2. Do you place plants under window sills? If so, trim them to a foot lower than the window sill level.
3. Trees should not hamper visibility to your house. Also ensure that burglars can’t use trees to gain access to your second floor windows and doors. Trim trees so that the lowest branches are seven feet or more above the ground.
4. Large gauge gravel causes noise when burglars walk on it. Placing them under windows is a good psychological deterrent.
5. Use fencing around your house and keep gates locked (even when you are at home, if possible). This sounds elementary, but locked gates prevent burglars from making off easily with large items!
In other words, ensure that there are no quick exits from the house.
6. Grow thorny plants under windows and along fences. They are very discouraging to burglars. Fencing using thorny plants is as good as barbed wire fencing and looks a whole lot better.
7. Ensure that street numbers are clearly visible from the street. This helps anyone responding to emergency calls to reach your home faster.
House numbers placed on your house should be six inches high and made of reflective material. Alternatively, use black on white lettering. The numbers should be illuminated at night.
Paint your house number on the curb in front of your driveway, using black lettering on white background.
8. Don’t leave ladders and tools lying around. They should be locked away in a in a storage area or garage.
Get these eight things right and you will have enhanced your home security to a level that will make many potential burglars uneasy about targeting your home.
James Strobes is a home and office security consultant. For information on home security in general, home security alarm systems and more, see the foregoing links.
Filed under Home Security System by on Oct 31st, 2008. Comment. 
Although it’s less common to store documents in a safe now that computers have taken over the job, you may have a hand-signed will or old family photos you want to protect. If you have antique or rare stamps, manuscripts, baseball cards and other collectibles these are other items for which the inside of a safe is the safest place. Securing your home is very important and shouldn’t be ignored.
There are many types of safe that be be purchased for the home and wall safes are perhaps the most exciting just because we see them featured in spy movies, but they provide an extra level of security. They can be masked behind paintings, tucked in a stairwell or hidden in other unlikely but easily accessible locations. Some are manufactured to be installed in the floor rather than the wall, simply by flipping the safe 90 degrees.
There are many other safes beside the wall safe such as ones that can be placed in a desk drawer and then there are whole rooms that can become a safe. You may think that room safes are only for banks.
Several styles depend as much on stealth and disguise as they do on strength. There are safes that are designed to look like uninteresting every-day things that would be of no interest to a thief. Such safes can look like a jar of coffee or a deodorant spray. They aren’t as good as other safes in that they can easily be broken into, however due to their dullness, thieves are unlikely to look in them.
If you feel that your valuables are too important to be placed in a fake tin of beans then there are safes that are more sophisticated and use special computer technology. Just as banks do, you can program them to only allow access at certain times of the day.
That’s not all, there are even more security measures that can be included in this type of safe too. It might sound very futuristic but you can buy safes that can recognize fingerprints. If you are forgetfully of passwords then this might just be up your street.
You may need only a small plastic bin with a simple key lock. Or you may need the full protection of a full-sized, fire-safe floor model. But whatever your security needs, there’s a safe that’s right for you.
Filed under Home Security Guide by on Oct 28th, 2008. Comment.
It is obvious that lighting plays a critical role in making your home safer. Yet, many homeowners don’t plan it well from the viewpoint of security. Here are several critical home security tips on lighting.
* All sides of your home should have security lighting in place, placed high out of reach. Make sure it is reasonably vandal resistant.
* Lighting near doors is especially important, because burglars tend to focus on doors the most.
* To reduce risk of burglary, any lighting is better than no lighting. If you see that any portion of the house or yard is not adequately lit, take care of it.
* Your garage is another critical area of your home. Make use of an automatic garage opener. Most garage openers turn on one or more lights when activated.
* To protect your carport, leave a light on. If you are going away, have a light set on a timer. Also have lights activated by motion detectors to deter intruders.
* In general, lights attached to motion detectors are the best choice for exteriors, particularly for the backyard. Connect an alarm as well and you will immediately get to know if someone moves around in your yard.
* Some people hesitate to use motion sensor type lighting because of the false alarms caused by small animals like cats and dogs. Proper placement of the motion sensors as well as correct settings for sensitivity will take care of this problem to a large extent.
* Using motion sensors in the front of the house requires careful planning, because they can be triggered by people walking on the sidewalk or by children playing. Nevertheless, it is a good idea to hook lights to motion sensors.
* Many people leave just a small light on when going out. This is done to avoid walking into a dark home when returning. Examples include hallway lights or a light in one corner of the kitchen / living room.
Unfortunately, this kind of lighting signals to would-be burglars that no one is home.
The solution is to leave several lights on. Leave a radio on as well. When going on a vacation, put interior lights and a radio on timers.
As you can see, your objective is twofold. One, to ensure that lighting can reach all nooks and corners of your home and yard on demand. Two, your home should look occupied even when it is not.
Follow these simple home security tips on lighting and you will have gone a long way towards creating a safer home for you and your family.
James Strobes is a home and office security consultant. For information on home security in general, wireless home security systems and more, see the foregoing links.
Filed under Home Security System by on Oct 28th, 2008. Comment.