Twelve Simple Do it Yourself Security Steps.

It is obvious that an unlocked car, an open front or garage door, or a home with little protection offers an invitation for someone to invade and move in, no matter where you live. Opportunities present themselves to strangers every day. In today’s environment it is important to think ahead, and to take pre-cautions.

Take a few simple and basic steps to prevent making your home a target; (Common Sense Steps);

1. Make sure your doors and windows are locked; Check them before you leave the house or when you go to sleep. Visitors or home service workers may have purposely unlocked a window or door somewhere, so they can return at a later time to get access! Close your garage door while you are not using it!

2. Did you change your locks when you moved in? Install good locks and deadbolts on the front door. You don’t know who had keys prior to you moving in.

3. Put pins, burglar bars and/or special locks on your sliding doors to keep them from being lifted out of the tracks;

4. Don’t hide keys in flowerpots, under doormats, on top of door frames, etc. It is better to use special door locks with number combination codes, if you are worried about losing a key, or need to let someone in.

5. Use timers to turn your lights on and off while you are gone for a longer period of time; you can also turn on a talk radio station on low, but loud enough to hear voices in the house from the outside;

6. Have someone pick up your mail and newspapers while you go on vacation;

7. Turn off the telephone ring during the day when you are not home; a phone that keeps ringing forever might confirm to someone outside that you’re are not home;

8. If you have a security system, turn it on while you’re gone or at night. Make sure the keypad isn’t visible from the outside, especially when it shows that it isn’t armed;

9. If you are home all day alone and someone, unknown to you, rings the doorbell, make it known that you are not interested; this would prevent a break in based on the assumption that no one is home; make sure you have a way to verify who is at the front door, (beep hole, etc.) before you open it;

10. Don’t leave valuables, laptops, etc. lying in plain view through a window or glass door;

11. Cut back bushes and plants that allow someone to hide as they break in through a door or window;

12. Don’t leave ladders, boxes, etc. accessible in your yard; These items make it easy for the intruder to climb up towards a balcony or another potential access point into your home.