Prevent a Break-in: Ideas to Help Keep Your Home and Family Safe
It’s a fact of life that break-ins can happen. We can’t stop people from wanting to break into our homes, but we can take measures to ensure they don’t find it easy. As a result, would-be thieves will be put off and less likely to attempt a break-in. Below are several security measures that you can take to help prevent a break-in. Most of them are fairly easy to implement, and won’t cost a whole lot of money. As long as you take the security of your home seriously, you’ll be able to make some huge improvements.
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Alarms
The first thing you need to think about when it comes to ways to help prevent a break-in is the alarms in your building. Having alarms just in case a thief makes it through without being heard is crucial. This will act as an important deterrent, often making them flee the scene before they’ve had a chance to do any damage. Don’t be afraid to advertise the fact that you’ve got an alarm system as it might make them skip your home altogether.
Install CCTV
If you want to go one step further, you can install CCTV within your home. That might sound like overkill to some, but it really isn’t. The best part about is that it doesn’t actually cost a lot of money to install a few cameras around the place. You can even monitor them with phone apps in many cases, allowing you to spy on those cameras if you think someone is downstairs!
Shutters
Something else you might want to consider when it comes to taking measures to prevent a break-in is to install roller shutters. For thieves who attempt to make their way into your home with force, they’ll find it difficult when coming into contact with shutters. They act as a barricade of sorts, making things tough for any would-be thieves. They also help to hide the contents of your home, which is good if you’ve got anything particularly valuable in the window.
Additional Locks
It’s no good having old, rickety doors, and waiting for someone to barge through them with ease! If you’re concerned about your safety when it comes to your doors, add additional locks! This will reinforce them with an extra level of security, making it almost impossible for someone to pick the locks and make their way through.
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Hide Valuable Items
When it comes to ways to help prevent a break-in, this one is more about common sense than anything else! If you don’t want thieves hanging around your premises, don’t make it obvious that you’ve got valuable items in the home! The last thing you want is to put your ultra-expensive TV and similar gadgets on display. An even worse thing to do is leave that supercar outside of the garage! We all like to show off from time to time, but there’s a way of doing that sensibly. Tempting fate isn’t clever.
Be Careful When Away On Vacation
Ah, vacation. While you’re enjoying the sun in another country, thieves might be breaking into your house! But, how did they know you wouldn’t be there? Well, you’ve got to be a little clever about this. Firstly, don’t let mail build up outside your house. Either tell the postal company to temporarily stop your mail or ask your neighbors to collect it for you. Don’t make it look like there’s no one at home, either. Leave a light on or leave the curtains open. As we’re about to explore, you can get quite creative with this.
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Install Automated Lighting
Another way to help prevent a break-in is a solution that works brilliantly whether you’re on vacation, or you’re simply out for the day. These automated lighting systems activate at certain times, making it look like you’re at home, and you’ve just switched the lights on. If you’re away from the home on a regular basis, try to get even more creative with them. Switch up the different times that the lights turn on so that criminals don’t start to notice a pattern.
Don’t Hide A Spare Key
Alright, admit it. You’ve done this before, right? I think we all have at some point. At those times when we need to get access to our property, and we’ve lost the key, it can become very useful. It’s also a great way of getting a key to a family member that’s passing through. Unfortunately, it’s also an easy opportunity for criminals to get access. You never just know who’s watching you hide that spare key. People might be sneaking around your property looking for it, and if you don’t remove it, you’re in trouble. Nothing says ‘easy break-in’ like being able to unlock the door and walk in with ease!
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Secure The Perimeter
You might have a garden; you might not. Either way, securing the perimeter of your house is just as important as securing your house itself. For example, if you aren’t clearing the area of trees and overgrown hedges, you’re giving criminals some great hiding spaces! Also, if you’ve got fences around your building, you might want to put some anti-climb paint or something of that nature on them. Anything that can deter these thieves is worth it, so don’t neglect the outside of your property.
Maintain A Good Relationship With Neighbors
We all like to try to get along with our neighbors. It makes our lives easier and offers us some friendly faces to talk to on a daily basis. However, that friendship can sometimes become crucial in certain situations – especially when it comes to ways to prevent a break-in. Allowing them to contact you if anything is amiss is important, so give them your phone number! You never just know if you’ll be out of the house and they’ll spot suspicious activity around it. They can then contact you as well as the police. Make no mistake about it; a good relationship with your neighbors is very beneficial.
As you can probably tell, there are many ways to prevent a break-in. We rarely consider the possibility of a break-in occurring, but on the one day when it does happen, you want to be protected. The best case scenario is that they flee from the scene immediately when they realize how secure your premises are. So, get out there and start protecting your home as well as your own personal safety!