Now that lockdowns seem to be coming to an end, it means that we will be back to spending more time outside the house. This is a good time to think about how to keep your home safe. Thieves are just waiting for the moment when we return to summer activities and vacations so they can take advantage.
There is not just one way to keep your house safe. In fact, there are a lot of things that you should be doing. In this article, I will go over what several of those things are so you can make sure that your house is always your safe space.
1 – Go with a smart alarm system
Having an ordinary alarm is good enough to protect your home. But, now when you are looking for alarms for your home, you can supercharge your security by using a smart system, such as the Vivint home security system.
The reason is that now that the Internet of Things is so widespread, devices can talk to each other. This means that you have a sort of multipronged system that uses a variety of methods to keep your house safe. It almost doesn’t make sense to only have an alarm that alerts the police when there is an intruder.
These days you can focus on prevention to keep somebody from entering in the first place.
2 – Use a smart lock
One of the biggest problems in home security that suburban families have is how many people have access to their houses. If you use a dog walker or somebody to come and water your plants while you are away then these keys can get into the hands of the wrong people.
Instead of giving out a key, you can give a temporary password to the smart lock so they can let themselves in only when they have access. You can change the password after they’ve come to the house so they can’t enter again until they ask you for the new one.
Also, if you have packages being delivered, you can unlock the door remotely and allow the delivery person to put it inside your house so you don’t run the risk of somebody stealing it before you get home.
One drawback of smart locks and systems, in general, is that they need a power source to operate, so you may need to get a generator to keep them running during a blackout or power interruption. If you’re not ready for that expense yet, make sure to secure your doors and windows with high-quality traditional locks. When choosing locks, buy some samples, and test how they fare against different lock picking tools to see which one is the most secure lock.
3 – Don’t make announcements on social media
When you post about your long-awaited vacation, your weekend away, or even movie night with the kids, then you are letting the world know that your home is empty. If the wrong person is reading that post then they know that they can go over there and rob you.
Make sure that you have your privacy settings so only certain people can see your posts. Better yet, keep that kind of information to yourself.
4 – Hold your mail
Another way to make sure that nobody knows that you’re on vacation is to ask the post office to hold your mail. Do the same if you have any newspapers that get delivered so that somebody scanning the neighborhood doesn’t see the tell-tale sign of an overstuffed mailbox. That’s practically an invitation to a thief.
