Your home is an important place. It is where you should be able to relax, unwind, and build memories with your family. Home is the place you should feel the most safe. Not only mentally and emotionally, but also physically. Home is a retreat – a place to escape from the unpredictability and stress of life.
This doesn’t just happen on its own though. Safety requires us to be intentional. While out in public we are intentional about using good situational awareness and making sure our belongings are secure and well cared for. This improves safety and helps reduce the potential stress from daily challenges. We must also take a focused, proactive approach to securing our homes. While alarm systems and security cameras are wonderful tools, there are much simpler and cheaper ways to start securing your home today.
Securing Your Home
Below are 7 easy, and free, ways to start improving the security of your home. Don’t assume someone else is going to proactively protect your house for you. While often invaluable, most services (fire, police, security company) are reactive – they respond after the incident happens. Or, at best, while it is still happening. It is up to you to put in place the necessary measures to reduce the likelihood of the incident happening in the first place.
Step 1: Lock up
Start simple. I am surprised by the number of people whom I find out leave their doors and ground level windows unlocked overnight or when the leave the house. You may trust your neighbors, but what about a stranger driving through the neighborhood?
Most crime tends to be opportunistic, not pre-planned. This is good news because it is much easier to prepare against opportunistic crime. So, start locking up the doors and accessible windows when you’re gone from the house. Window locks tend to lose functionality over the years, keep them in good repair or replace them as needed. Remember to check non-standard entry points as well – the garage door(s), a cellar entrance, the door to your shed or barn, etc.
Step 2: Use lighting to your advantage
Because most crime, and especially burglary and theft, tend to be opportunistic, you can use both interior and exterior lighting around your home to deter would be criminals. Keep all exterior lights in good condition and turned on after dark. This can include a light at the end of the driveway, a porch light, and a light near any rear doors. And make sure you replace the bulbs as soon as they burn out.
For the interior of your home, consider leaving a light on overnight in a common room – such as the living room or kitchen. The goal with this is to inspire doubt in a potential criminal’s mind as to whether someone is awake or not. Any criminal is going to think twice about walking up to a house with lights on outside (exposing them) and on the inside (indicating presence).
Step 3: Close the curtains
Another simple way to improve your home security is to make anything inside worth stealing less visible. Closing the curtains ensures that anybody strolling past is unable to see inside your home. Now, obviously, if you’re home you want to enjoy the sunshine or nice weather. This practice is specifically for after dark and when you are gone from home. Coupling closed curtains with a light turned on at night is a great way to deter potential criminals. Closing curtains when you are gone or after dark is also a great first step in Target Hardening your home.
Step 4: Use a door jammer
This is most applicable and useful on a sliding patio door. These doors, due to their size, have more flexibility in them than a swinging door or a smaller sliding window. Older sliding doors especially can be defeated fairly easily, allowing a criminal to slide it open and enter the home. The easiest way to secure against this is to use a length of wood, or other strong material, as a door jammer (or security bar). Cut it to the length of one of the door panels and lay it down on the track between the sliding panel and the far side jamb of the door. This will prevent the door from sliding open even if the latch or lock are defeated.
Step 5: Don’t tell the internet when your house is empty
Remember, what you post on the internet can be shared well beyond your close circle. If it’s on social media, it’s not private. Don’t make posts or send social media messages about your absence from home. If you are going on a vacation or work trip out of town, don’t announce it online before hand. This public advertisement completely defeats Steps 1-3. Also, don’t post photos while still on vacation. Wait until you get home to share those wonderful memories with friends and family (and the rest of the internet community).
Step 6: Build relationships with your neighbors
Good security is not the realm of an individual, but of a trusted group. There is usually greater safety in numbers. Get to know your neighbors. Not only will you build trust and possibly make new friends, you will also be gaining extra eyes and ears to help keep your home secure. While you shouldn’t post online about your extended absence, it can be worthwhile letting a trusted neighbor know in person that you will be out of town. If reasonable, they can even keep a spare key or park a car over in your driveway to create the illusion of inhabitation.
Step 7: Keep up on home maintenance
It is important to keep your house and yard maintained well. This will not only demonstrate that someone is living actively there, but that you care about your property and are keeping a regular eye on it. This is especially important for vacation or rental properties that may go periods of time without anyone actually living there. Connect this with Step 6 and you may even find a retired neighbor willing to more the grass of the vacation home for you!
Additionally, good maintenance habits increase the effectiveness of each of the steps above – making sure your locks are functional and strong, replacing lightbulbs in a timely manner, etc. Some other considerations are: making sure your doorbell works, repairing broken or weak fencing, and performing a regular perimeter check around your home and property.
A home secured…
Home security doesn’t have to be expensive or high tech. The first steps are simple, easy, and often free. When your home is secured well you will feel confident that you and the family can fully relax and take your ease in your home.
A home secured with vigilance and awareness is truly a sanctuary.
Want More?
- After securing your home, read about 5 Ways to Improve Your Personal Security
- Check out 3 Easy Ways to Store and Conserve Water
- Take some time to Develop a Home Emergency Plan
