Home safety is an incredibly important thing for all homeowners and with a house full of memories and valuable possessions, of course you will want to protect it.
As with all types of crime, prevention is much better than cure, but the many solutions for protecting your home, such as a full security system can be too expensive for a lot of people to invest in, so we have listed below four simple ways that you can protect your home from any potential robbers and thieves that are more affordable and easier to implement.
Use Decoy Security
As mentioned above, a full-scale home security system isn’t cheap, they cost a lot of money and usually need to be installed by a professional which makes it an even more expensive process that will take more time. So, if you can’t afford to invest in an expensive home security system as a deterrent, you can buy imitation or old security gear for a much cheaper price and it’s still likely to do the job.
Buying dummy security systems is a lot cheaper but still acts like a deterrent as any would be thieves can still see what they believe is a security system on your home which would hopefully put them off trying to break in. Therefore, by buying a few decoy cameras and a fake bellbox would potentially be enough to keep criminals away from your home.
Cover Ground Floor Windows
Most domestic burglaries are committed by opportunists. Opportunity plays a big role in enabling burglars to commit a crime. They look for homes that seem unoccupied, have little or no obvious security, have doors or windows left open, or where they think they won’t be seen. Many criminals will first ‘case’ your property, which is essentially them peeking into your home to see who lives there, what valuables are inside and what the easiest access points are. They’ll usually focus on the ground floor as they’re the only accessible windows without a ladder. So to keep criminals away you’ll want to remove their ability to peak into your home, so things to look at would be getting thick curtains, removing valuables from the view of window, covering the edges of windows or installing privacy tapes to your blinds, this blog post explains what privacy tapes are if you’re unaware.
Scare Them Off
When a criminal attempts to break into a property, they’ll likely have a high level of anxiety making them very jumpy, because of this, it’s very easy to scare off any robbers approaching your home, just a little shock is all that’s required to scare them off.
An automatic light near the front door that lights up when movement is detected is great for this, especially if you have a security camera (real or fake) positioned to where the light will shine, this should be enough to scare them away. To go further you can set up a similar device that makes noise when motion is detected, like a dog bark to scare off any criminals.
Don’t announce it when you are out
As mentioned, would be thieves are generally opportunists. So, if you are planning on being away from your property for a few days or have a holiday booked then make sure you do not announce this to all and sundry on social media before you go and save uploading the holiday snaps for when you are back. It’s also worth setting up indoor light timers for when you are away so that the house looks occupied.