Simple Steps for Better Home Security

In this decade, in this country, people are becoming more and more concerned with personal safety, and rightly so. I am a serious advocate for personal & home security, and I think anyone who lives indoors (which probably means you!) should be as well. To clarify, this article isn't about national security, it isn't about financial security....it isn't about social security (but I could rant about that for awhile, let me tell you). This article is specifically dealing with your home, and the people who live inside it. Also, the "bad guys" who we are securing the house from are thieves, rapists, murders of the ordinary sort. If the Taliban storms your house searching for infidels or something.....you're on your own. Here a scenario: A man wants to steal things from a house to sell for money. He needs to find a fitting house to break into. Every house on the street is a potential candidate. Why will the man choose someone else's house instead of yours? I will get to that. Right off the bat let me say that I could write page upon page of what I personally would do if I woke up to somebody inside my house, or came home and a criminal was in my house. But then I would ramble far into my 2nd Amendment rights speech, and tell you how I would disable the trespasser, and so on. Well not everyone can or will own a firearm, and not everyone can or will take down an intruder manually (hand-to-hand). So I can't be of much help in that area unless you have the same feelings and willingness to act about scumbag criminals as I do. So we will focus on prevention in this article. Back to the scenario. The biggest factors that a thief looks for when choosing a house to loot are visibility, opportunity, and payoff. A house with few or no outside lights, a house with no cars in the driveway, or a house which is visibly full of expensive merchandise....this house is going to get robbed. An electronic security system is very helpful and I would suggest everyone should get one, but you're still going to deal with a broken window or worse until the crook hears the alarm go off. The idea here is to make your house unappealing to a thief from the very beginning. The number one way to do this? Lights, lights, and more lights. Lights can be decorative and make your house more attractive, but not to a crook. If they are seen, they are busted. Make sure every door and window (that they can get in to....small bathroom windows and second floor windows aren't very easy to crawl in to) has lots of light coverage all around it. The front of your house should have light coverage from your house all the way to your driveway and front sidewalk. People like those motion-detect lights, but I do not. I want my house to be completely illuminated at all times, so the crook doesn't even bother getting close to the house in the first place to see if they're motion lights. Secondly, window coverings. If a thief can't see what is in your house, he can't decide if you're worth robbing as easily. If you have a living room full of beautiful leather couches and big screen TV's, the thief probably won't steal those, because they're large and heavy, but he's going to think about the probability that there's a big box of jewelry and a big nightstand drawer of cash and Rolex's in your master bedroom! I know you have that big beautiful picture window in the front of your house that your wife just loves and is the reason she wanted this house in the first place.... but for god's sake cover it up with some drapes. Make sure the windows are completely covered at night, because when it's dark outside and light inside, your house is a fish tank and Mr. Criminal sees right in there. Now, I mentioned security systems before. Personally I don't want to spend the money on one. But I surely do have Brinks stickers and signs on every window and door. If you can afford a system, get one, and make sure there is a control panel with panic button in the room you sleep in. If you can't get a system or don't want to, you can still get your hands on the stickers and signs. Even make up a fake security system company and have your own stickers printed up. "Fatal Mistake Alarm Co." or something. Just something to make thieves beware (although I would recommend getting signs and stickers of a widely known alarm company if you can manage to do so. They are tricky to get without buying an actual system, but it can be done). The last thing I will mention on this scenario is opportunity. If there are never any cars in the driveway, and your newspaper sits on the porch, every single day from 8:30 a.m. to 5:45 p.m., your home-intruder knows exactly when to rob you. It's not rocket science.......if it was, he'd go be a rocket scientist instead of robbing you. But he's not, so he will. If my home gets invaded, I sure hope it happens while I'm in it. Because, asleep or not, I am prepared to defend myself and my house. But chances are, if I ever get robbed, it will be when I'm not there. Your average crook does not like confrontation. He does not like trouble, he does not like attention, and he does not want to be a murderer. Because of that, he wants to rob you when nobody is anywhere near being home. This means that you need to have someone watching your house when you are not there. Unless you buy another car and just move it around your driveway, or you rig up a mannequin on pulleys and strings and an electric train set like on Home Alone, your thief will know when nobody is home. They could just knock on the door while dressed like a door-to-door salesman (which look like everybody else....just as thiefs do!!). My advice is to get some security cameras. Even if they aren't hooked up to anything (although I would recommend it), they are a deterrent. If I walked up to someone's front door, and there were two security cameras up high, looking down at me from two angles, I'm not going to break in. First of all, I assume I'm being recorded or watched by somebody. Secondly, I assume that if they went to all that trouble to have TWO security cameras, then of course they're going to have a wicked alarm system inside. Cameras are great, because even if they're not turned on, they cause such a level of paranoia and caution in anyone who is visible to them. So there you have it. Just a few simple things that could very well make sure that those neighbors you hate get robbed instead of you.