Your family is the most precious thing in the world to you. It’s your responsibility to keep them safe. You teach your kids not to talk to strangers and you teach them how to cross the street without getting run over, but what about the things you have less control over?
One of those things is your home and you don’t have total control over who can come in and out. If someone wanted to break into your home they could find a way. Are you making it as difficult for them as possible? If not you should start thinking about what you can do.
It’s one of those things we don’t pay attention to. As long as you have the door locked you assume nobody is going to break in. But that’s unfortunately not how it works. A silly little bolt on your door isn’t going to stop everyone. There are certain things you can do that will reduce your chances of being broken into, which in turn will keep your family safe.
You’ll need to make some changes to your home if you aren’t already using them. These simple changes will make your home much less attractive to would-be thieves.
1. Keep everything locked up
If you have a garage, that means putting the car away. If you have expensive things in the garden it means locking them in a garden hut, or at least hiding them so they won’t be seen when someone is walking past.
It only takes a few minutes to jump over a fence and grab something. Some people aren’t afraid of the police and they wouldn’t be frightened to steal something and get themselves a new toy.
2. Let people know you’re home
People will take an opportunity when presented with one and if they think there’s no-one home they could strike. It’s bad enough that they could break-in when nobody is home, but when you have children and a partner in bed it becomes a whole different ball game.
Let people know you are in by having lights switched on when you’re at home. Even if the kids are in bed and you’re working in the office you should only switch lights off before you go to sleep.
3. Use an alarm
When everyone is sleeping at night you might not hear anyone come in. They could easily get into your home without waking you and you’d be none the wiser. If you have an alarm system it means you don’t need to sleep with one ear listening to what’s happening downstairs.
As soon as the alarm went off you could get everyone into a safe place until the police arrive. What’s more likely to happen is that the thief would get out of there as quickly as possible without looking back.
4. Install a video camera
Having a video camera outside acts as a great deterrent and people are going to think twice about being caught on video trying to break into a property. It’s an easy way to get caught and anyone with half a brain wouldn’t be so stupid.
Some people unfortunately don’t even have half a brain, but luckily you might notice them attempting to break in and you can call the police. Even if they run away the police will have a nice photo to go on and they’ll be caught.
5. Beef up doors and windows
Unless someone turns into a ghost and walks through your wall they will more than likely need to come in through a door or window. Instead of just having deterrents like a security system and video cameras, you can actually make the doors and windows a lot harder to get through.
This means you’ll have to fit them with much stronger bolts and use windows that are thicker than a single pane of glass. If you can’t scare them away, you can stop them right in their tracks.