5 Items That Can Help Secure Your Home Against Crimes and Disasters
- Saws and pruning tools
- Alarm company signs and stickers
- Security cameras
- Secure locks
- Motion sensors for outdoor lighting
In an unsafe world, it is smart to learn about ways to make your home safer. There’s no shortage of dangerous elements that can threaten a home. Criminals look for ways to exploit any existing vulnerabilities when they break into a home to burglarize it. Natural disasters like wildfires, hurricanes, snowstorms, and earthquakes can wreak havoc on a home. We suggest using the following 5 tools for securing a home against criminals, natural disasters and other unsavory elements that can render a home unsafe.
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1. Saws and Pruning Tools
Keeping trees and shrubs properly pruned will minimize one of the most critical safety hazards around the home. During hurricanes, ice storms or other bad weather incidents, dead tree branches are probably going to break off and fall, creating dangerous conditions for anyone who happens to be nearby. Be proactive about removing them before they have a chance to injure people or damage property in the vicinity. In windy conditions, branches could even blow in through a window and injure someone inside the home.
Trimming trees and hedges around the home’s windows also reduces the likelihood that a burglar could easily skulk in the bushes while casing the home or seeking entry.
2. Alarm Company Signs and Stickers
Prominently place an alarm company sign on the lawn and stickers on the windows. Burglars tend to avoid homes that they believe to be secured by alarm systems. So even if no alarm system is enabled on a property, a homeowner can help to prevent burglaries and break-ins by giving the appearance that a protective alarm system is active.
3. Security Cameras
Install a security camera overlooking the front entry door. Many burglars have the nerve to actually ring the front doorbell before they break into a home. They do this because it’s the easiest way to ensure nobody is in the house. Homeowners can outsmart these criminals using motion-sensitive security cameras that are rigged to call the homeowner when anyone approaches the door.
4. Secure Locks
Install the best quality locks available. Use them vigilantly.
Each door should have at least three locks on it: the lock on the doorknob, a deadbolt and a chain lock that can be used when someone in the home decides to answer the door to a stranger. Most burglars don’t need to break and enter. They’re able to sneak in through unlocked garages, doors or windows.
5. Motion Sensors for Outdoor Lighting
Homeowners can reduce the likelihood of nighttime burglaries by providing motion sensor activated lighting for their home exteriors. Configure the lighting so that it will instantly turn on when someone steps onto the premises. When the homeowners are at home, the light coming on will alert them if an intruder is present. When they’re not at home, the motion could catch the attention of alert neighbors or the local neighborhood watch.
These are not the only possible ways to make your home safer, but they are some of the first steps that can be taken towards meeting this goal. It’s wise to evaluate the likeliest natural disasters, crimes and other dangers that could happen in the neighborhood and take additional steps to protect your home from them as well. For homeowners in areas that are vulnerable to earthquakes, FEMA’s guide to earthquake safety at home is worth reading. Also be sure to browse the rest of our website for more helpful related information. In addition to these suggestions for ways to make your home safer, we offer a wide variety of helpful articles on many other aspects of emergency management.