Home is a place where we feel the safest, or at least we should. It’s a place where all our loved ones are, where we spend most of our time, where we eat, sleep and so on. Keeping home a safe place has been one of our most important jobs for as long as we had anything to call home. Forms of home security have changed throughout the years – from guardian dogs to advanced CCTV monitoring systems. It’s safe to say, that in recent years, methods and security systems available have become more versatile and effective than ever.
With all that in mind, we’ve stopped and asked ourselves, is there anything else that we can additionally do, to keep our homes and loved ones safe? We’ve thought about it and we may have stumbled upon an answer or two. Therefore, if you want to know what you can do to make your home a safer place, stick around because we’re about to present you with several possible ways to make that happen. Let’s get started.
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1. Don’t showcase your wealth
We do realize that this may sound like the victim-blaming, however, it is not. This is simply a precaution measure and a fairly effective one. We’re not trying to say that the stealing and burglaries don’t happen in neighbourhoods or communities with less fortunate people – we’re simply stating that shiny things attract people. Essentially, the most effective advice we could give you when it comes to home security is don’t make it look like you have to worry about security.
People break into houses because they want to steal stuff. If it looks like you have nothing valuable to steal, it might just be enough for burglars to go away. For instance, if you own an expensive car or a motorbike, don’t keep it parked in the driveway during the night – park in the garage. If you own an expensive piece of tech, like a large OLED TV or a stereo system, keep the windows closed and drapes shut during the night. Another thing we tend to do is, leave the boxes in front of the house. Don’t leave a box in which your MacBook came in on your porch, either safely store it for future use, or just put in the trash bag.
2. Invest in good drapes
This might seem like a weird idea but home security and privacy go hand in hand. If no one can see into your home at night when it’s dark and the light is shining from the inside of the living room, no one can know whether you’re home or if you have anything valuable inside. Also, you will shield yourself from possible peeping Toms.
3. Don’t ‘hide’ your key
One of the worst things anyone can do is hide their key outside of their house. How this became a trend, we’ll never know, but we’re telling you – don’t do it. The point of the key is to keep all of those without it unable to enter your house. The biggest problem of the ‘hidden’ key is that it has to be somewhere near the entrance and easily accessible, which means easily accessible to the burglar. Hiding a key under a welcome mat or a fake rock in front of your porch is basically the same as leaving the key in a lock. An experienced intruder will know where to look and will easily get in.
4. Use quality locks
A basic burglar technique is to pick a lock. To be fair, most of the regular locks can be picked by anyone in less than a few minutes after they’ve watched a YouTube tutorial – it’s that simple. If you don’t want to risk that, you might want to invest in some quality locks that are more advanced, secure and essentially impossible to pick. You could easily find and get lock like those from www.locksmithandsecurity.co.uk, the best locksmith Glasgow has to offer. Once you got them installed, you’ll sleep like a baby knowing your locks are pick-proof.
5. Don’t make your house look empty
Most of the burglaries happen when people are out of the house. No one wants to risk getting caught or being confronted, so thieves tend to look for an opening when no one’s home. Therefore, if you ever leave for a few days, on a vacation, for example, make sure your house looks like there’s someone in there. If you’re close with your neighbours, you can leave them a key and ask them to pick up the mail, maybe mow the lawn or just check up on the house. If that’s not the case, you could always get a few lamps that can be set on a timer so they turn on and off at specific times giving out the impression that someone’s home.
6. Install security cameras (or fake ones)
Installing security cameras can be a bit on the expensive side, but you could strike a good deal. After all, how much does a piece of mind cost? On the other hand, if you don’t want a security camera or you simply cannot afford them, buying a few fake ones might do the trick. You could purchase a replica of a security camera for about $10 off of Amazon. Sometimes, everything that burglar needs to see is a set of cameras pointed to the front door or the yard to become discouraged and give up.
7. Don’t use glass doors
Front doors with glass panels might look good, but they are a security nightmare. How many times have you seen in the movies a burglar just punching through the glass and opening the door from the inside? If you don’t want to think about that, just get a solid, wooden or PVC door and don’t worry about it.
8. Use motion-activated lights
Motion-activated lights are an inexpensive, yet very effective way to get rid of anyone that might be snooping around. Not only will the lights activate if something moves in front of them, but they’ll also all startle the intruder and possibly alert you or anyone nearby that something sketchy is going on.
Finally, to answer the question we previously asked. Is there anything else that we can do, to keep our homes and loved ones safe? As you could see – the answer is yes. Hopefully, a few of these tips gave you an idea on how to do that.
