Six Simple Home Security Solutions
Home is more than four walls and a roof. Home is our life’s work, our comfort, our memories, our plans. If we don’t feel safe at home, we don’t feel safe anywhere. Here’s a few tips to help keep your home secure that don’t require a loan or military-grade operations.
Security Works Best In Layers
The professionals design security systems purposefully so that an adversary must encounter as many obstacles and deterrents as possible, and so that no entry into the area goes unannounced or unnoticed. Therefore, security operates best in layers, and the more layers you can provide the better.
Neighborhood
Realize that the security of your home does not start at your fence or at the property line; it starts at the border of your neighborhood. We are all familiar with those people that live in the neighborhood with us, whether we are friends or not. We are familiar with the vehicles they drive, the neighborhood children and even the stray cats. Keep your eyes and ears open for suspicious activity, and especially reports of crimes in the neighborhood.
Property
Your property line serves as an excellent secondary security perimeter. Once an unfamiliar person crosses your property line, their intent is easier to ascertain. Keep in mind that it may be a stranger in need of help, but once someone crosses the secondary line, you should change your security posture to an alert and be ready to defend your home.
Structure
Your home boundary serves as the final line of security. Assuming you are at home, an adversary must never be allowed to enter your home without you being aware of it. Once a stranger enters your home, their intent is clear, an action must be taken. Prioritizing between safety and loss will make your defensive option clear: if preventing material loss from an overwhelming force, evacuation is an option. To prevent injury or death to your family, you must defend.
Security Is Proactive
Security is about detection and deterrence first. Denial, and if all else fails, response, are contingencies in cases where the detection and deterrence factors were ineffective. Response is to be avoided, because responding to a threat requires dangerous and difficult action by the homeowner.
Detect
Information
A rise in reported crime in your neighborhood is a great indicator of potential threats to your family at home. Relationships with your neighbors and community go a long way in preventing and deterring threats to your home. Along these lines, it is important that you report suspicious activity or crimes to your local law enforcement and talk with your neighbors about issues. Tracking criminal activity is very important to finding long-term solutions to crime.
Cameras
You can get a set of cameras for a few hundred dollars that can provide invaluable information if deployed correctly. Cameras are considered “Force Multipliers” by security professionals: They deter activity, alert you to activity, and allow you to track trends and anomalies over time. These systems can even send live streaming alerts to your mobile device.
Cameras can be a very practical technology to have around the house. I don’t have a lot of windows toward the front of my house. The cameras out front are how I know when my wife is home, when my package arrives, or what the dog keeps barking at in the front yard.
Lighting
Having a few lights around your home can deny criminals the time they need to break through your defenses while hiding in the shadows. No one wants to sit around to work on picking a lock while being broadcasted to anyone around. Exterior lighting (as well as a well-maintained exterior) also shows ownership and care for the property, deterring criminal elements from interest in your property.
Deter
An important aspect to consider is that your house doesn’t need to be like a bank vault. Your house just has to be more secure than the next house. Criminals use the cost/benefit analysis when deciding which homes are worth their attention, so your job is to help them see opportunities elsewhere. Remember, it’s always better to deter a threat than react to a threat.
Mind your Business
Never put the packaging for large, expensive purchases on the curb for trash pick-up. This advertises opportunities to steal valuables to criminals. Break down packaging, and consider recycling it at the county landfill.
Same goes for personal information in the trash. One can find plenty of useful information about the occupants of a household from their discarded mail and files. Shred any paperwork or mail that can provide personal or financial information before it goes into the outside trash bin.
Animals
A dog is the single best deterrent against criminal activity at your home. One dog can cover all three aspects of the system: Not only does a dog provide protection, they provide an unmatched ability to detect and alert to danger.
Deny
Site Hardening
The single most effective tool for hardening a home is the awareness and intentionality of the occupants. This means maintaining a good awareness and good security habits: never leave valuables in your vehicle, keep all doors and windows locked when not in use, developing emergency action plans with your family, etc. Here’s a few tips:
Make sure your entry points are well maintained and sturdy. Your doors and windows are the only points of entry, or exit, from your home. All locks must be competent and in working order, and all exits should remain in working order, free and clear of obstructions. For example:
Window A/C units are a common point of entry for burglars. They can simply kick the unit into the house and get in. Don’t run an A/C window unit when you’re not home, the sound is a tell-tale sign of an easy break in. Avoid placing A/C window units in windows that are easily visible from the street. Remove the window unit if you’re away on vacation.
Change the screws in your door hinges and locks to longer screws. A longer screw can be driven through the door frame and into the framing of the house, making a strong door stronger, and all but impossible to kick in.
Keep the closet floor clear in bedrooms so kids can hide and shelter from storms, earthquakes, and the like. A headlamp, bottle of water, blanket, and a book should be stashed in each closet.
Think creatively about barriers and points of access to your home.
It’s common to find a large, cleared area surrounding high-security facilities. Without cover and concealment, an adversary loses the element of surprise. From castles to cabins, it’s been a popular practice for centuries, and remains common practice in rural settings due to wildlife, wildfire, and storm threats.
You can deny entry to thieves by planting certain shrubs underneath the windows outside of your home. No-one is going to climb through a prickly holly bush to get into a window; they’ll just go to the next home. The same goes for the fence line around your property. Plant a few prickly bushes beside your fence to keep people away.
Respond
Sound the alarm
The first response of security is to warn others, so they can get help while you’re dealing with the problem, or so they can help you deal with the problem. When a threat to your home occurs, everyone in the house should know immediately, and follow their plan of what they should do in an emergency.
Have someone assigned to call 911 in an emergency, so it doesn’t get forgotten in the chaos and panic.
Isolate the threat
Reduce the danger to your family by finding ways to separate the threat from your family, or vice versa. If the threat is inside, get everyone out and away from it. If the threat is outside, get everyone inside and sheltered. If the threat comes in, confine the threat to the opposite side of the house by engaging the threat early, immediately upon entry.
Resolve the threat
The best, and most likely, resolution to a threat to your family is to scare off the perpetrators. The easiest and safest way to accomplish this is to attack immediately and with all available effort. It’s best to overwhelm the threat quickly, they are more likely to give up immediately when faced with aggression. This also reduces your family’s exposure to the threat as quickly as possible, should the threat resist.
Help Your Family Recover
Once the threat is confirmed to have been appropriately dealt with, account for everyone and their welfare. Move your family away from the scene and try to calm everyone while you wait for first responders. Update the dispatcher if you’re still on the phone with 911 or call them back and update them on the situation. Once first responders arrive, unload and secure any weapons you had to use, and be patient with law enforcement officers. They are responding to an active crime scene and will make a priority of ensuring officer safety at the scene first.
Having your home threatened is an extremely vulnerable feeling. Have open and honest conversations with your family, and make sure you play close attention to their needs after an incident at home.
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