Christmas is another festive season when most homeowners throw caution to the winds and immerse themselves in the joys of family gatherings, parties, social gatherings, gift sharing and a lot more. They tend to forget that Christmas is also a bounty season for burglars who know that many houses will be empty and people are at their lowest scale of alertness. Others who know better will take every precaution to make their home secure during the festivities. Installing the right home security products is a step in the right direction.
Priority #1 – home security
The security of your home takes precedence over all other security issues and therefore the ways and means of achieving this goal should be of high priority. Here are just a few of those them:
- Install top quality locks on all your doors and windows.
- Sensor lights installed at each and every dark section of the house will act as a deterrent to people having ulterior motives and alert your neighbours of the presence of strangers.
- Buying and installing an alarm system will add strength to the security of your home
- Consider replacing your screens with security screens. These offer extra protection against intruders, but look just like ordinary screens.
Priority #2 – feigned presence
You can make arrangements with you neighbour to do some minor tasks for you that will make it look like you are still around. These tactics will have a huge effect in preventing burglars from robbing your house:
- Hang some old clothes on the clothesline and ask your neighbour to take your rubbish bin out for emptying and to store it afterwards. Parking a car in your empty driveway is a convincing way of making people think you are still at home. Ask a favour of your neighbour to do this for you.
- Your lights can be synchronized by an automatic timer to go on and off at regular intervals and at the usual times when they are supposed to.
- Leaving a porch light on during the day sends a signal to burglars that no one is in the house and a very sure sign of an empty house is when the bedroom lights are left on all night. Make sure you turn off these lights before you depart.
- Long grass in the yard is a sure give away sign so make sure you have the lawn mowed down before departure. Calling in a garden maintenance to do some periodic garden facelift, will give nothing away about your absence on a long vacation.
- Piling up of mail in the mailbox and newspapers strewn on the lawn are sure signs of an empty house. Ask the post office to hold your mail until your return and ask your neighbour to dispose of the newspapers.
- A classic system you can enlist help from is a home automation system. The system is so technically advanced it can do almost the same things a human can. When you have one installed you will have the control of your home at your fingertips while you are on a layback armchair sipping your favourite drink.