Home Security – How to Prevent Intruder

The Importance of Locking Doors

A home alarm system can certainly alert you and the local authorities that an intruder is attempting to break into your home. This same alarm will hopefully scare off the intruder; never to return. However, there are a handful of other measures to take to prevent intruders regardless of whether you have a home alarm system installed or not. It seems obvious, but it can’t hurt to re-state the importance of locking your doors when you leave your home or go to bed at night. Even if you live in what you would consider a “safe area”, you just never know.

Avoiding Common Mistakes

Avoid keeping spare keys under mats, on top of door frames, in planters, or your mailbox. These are the first places an intruder might look. Find a more secure hiding spot or better yet give it to a neighbor to hang on to for you.

Tips to Prevent Access Through Ladders

Store in a shed or garage ladders or outdoor furniture that can be used to access top-floor windows. Intruders know that often second-floor windows are left unlocked and if it is easy to get up to them, they will. Keep the shrubbery and trees along the foundation of your home cut short and thin. Make it so not one bush can be used to hide a person easily. Organize a neighborhood watch program in your community. These programs can make a significant impact on reducing crime and fear in your area. Before heading on an extended trip, there are steps to take to secure your home and its belongings while you are gone. The key is to make your home look as if it is occupied and give away no clues to the fact you have been away and might be for a while.

Important Factors

Be careful not to advertise that you will be out of town. Many people post on social networking sites their every move. Updating your status with “leaving for vacation now” is just the invitation a thief wants.

Ask neighbors or relatives to watch your house while you are gone. See if your local police department will also keep an eye on your home.
Stop mail and newspaper delivery or have a neighbor take it in every day. Have that same neighbor bring in any packages that may arrive when you are gone. Leaving a delivery outside of your garage for days is a dead giveaway that nobody is home.

Arrange to have your lawn mowed or snow shoveled if needed.
Install a handful of self-timers on lamps to turn on at dusk and off at bedtime. Make sure to stagger the times the lamps go on and off.
All the lights going on at the same time is obvious to anybody watching your home. Also, install timers on televisions or radios to turn on and off at different times each day.

Turn the ringer down on your telephone if it can be heard from the outside.
Have a neighbor, relative, or friend change the positions of your window treatments each day. Preferably mimic the pattern you regularly make when you are home; open during the day, closed at night.

Once you have implemented these tricks, you may want to consider installing a wireless home security alarm system. Many of these systems are DIY projects that you can complete in a weekend.