Home security

A lock keeps an honest man out! Bad people will do bad things! If someone wants your stuff badly enough there is no end they will go through to get it. A bit of preventative maintenance goes a long way. OK, all bad guy catchphrases are done now.

Name the random home security monitoring company, any or all of them serve a purpose; however, they are a for-profit business. Those companies typically provide monitoring and reporting only. With a little effort, you can do better for the money spent monthly to monitor by securing your home with minimal improvements.

Easy access points

• Doors
  • Make sure your doors are locked, simple enough
  • External doors should have deadbolts as well as handle locks
  • Have you replaced the stock 1″ screws that came with your door jam with 2″ or greater screws? This really braces the door jam into the house door structure instead of just the 1/2″ wood door frame.
  • Removable door braces can be useful as well.
  • Add door blocks to sliding doors to prevent sliding doors from being opened and removed from the track.
  • Locked security doors in front of your entry doors make it far more difficult to kick doors in
• Windows
  • Much like doors, locking your windows when they are closed is the easy solution.
  • If the windows are open, you can help to secure them in the following manner
    • Sliding windows
      • Install window locks to only allow windows to open between 2-3″
    • Cranked windows usually only open so far, removing the crank reduces that ability for it to open
  • Worst case add bars to the windows (not my favorite idea, but had to throw it in here)
• Garage
  • Close the overhead garage door when you are not in the garage.
  • If you have another door (human door), make sure it is locked when not as useful as well.
  • Apply a zip tie to the garage door release cable
  • Use a garage door lock while you are not home for extended periods of time
  • Lock the door between the garage and the entry to your home
  • Keep your vehicle locked as well (remember, it has your garage door opener inside of it)

Lights

• Adding some additional lighting around your home is also a discouragement for would be bad people
  • In this case, lights and cameras reduce the action

Hiding places

• Remove bushes, shrubs, trees or decorations that bad people could use to hide behind
• Minimize the ability for bad people to conceal themselves

Cleanup

• Remove all items from around the house that would encourage bad people to come up to the house, don’t leave things outside
• Remove all items from around the house that could be used for forced entry, large rocks, bricks and so on

Visibility

• Remove all valuable items from the view of windows
• Out of sight, out of mind as it were

Social Media

• Don’t post on social media your normal schedule
• Don’t post on social media when you will be out of town or that you are currently out of town
• Don’t post on social media how long you will be gone

Signs

• Beware of dog (whether you have one or not) discourages intruders as a fear of getting bit
• This home under video surveillance or Smile you are on camera, again real or not also discourage would be bad people from selecting your home
• Neighborhood watch is one of the better signs to post, bad people don’t know who is watching
• X Company Security sign gives you some peace of mind; however, does very little from discouraging would-be intruders
• This home guarded by Smith & Wesson, not a good sign to hang up as it tells would be bad people that you have firearms and other valuables

Recordings

• If you are truly recording video around your home/property, you want to ensure that your recording devices are behind lock and key to discourage intruders from taking the recording with them.
• Have an external back up of your recordings as well. Either to external drive or cloud.

It may be worthwhile to peruse this site for security camera advice.

It has been a while though the fundamentals are the same as what was displayed on this show.

Again the goal of this is to not make it easier for the bad people, but rather to provide them as much discouragement to move on past your home to somewhere else. Simple things go a long way.

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