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4 Tips To Help Keep Your Home Safe Against A Burglary

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Your home is your personal sanctuary and if it gets broken into, you can feel violated and unsafe. Do all you can to make your home as safe as possible to prevent a break-in because one-third of home assaults result from a burglary. Here are four tips you can implement in your home to help you keep your home safe from a burglary.

Change Your Locks

When you first move into your home, you should change the locks on all entrances into the home. You don't know if any of the previous owners still have keys to your home or if you can trust them. If you are renting your home, make sure your landlord changes out the locks. If they don't want to, let them know you can pay for it or do it yourself and give them a copy of the new keys. Changing the locks out on your home is important, especially as a renter. Renters are more likely than homeowners to be the victim of a property crime.

Make a habit to change your home's locks after you have lived in your house five years. It can be hard to keep track of who has a copy of your home keys and you never know where your key copies will end up. It is safer to change out the locks, then give new keys to the most important people in your life who need one.

Window Safety

According to the FBI, in 2010 over 60 percent of all burglaries were forcible entry, and 33.2 percent of burglaries happened without force because the intruder was able to come through an unlocked entrance. Leaving just one window unlocked on your home gives a burglar 100 percent access into your home. If your windows have working locks, make sure to secure them when you are gone. If they don't have locks, have them repaired or place a wooden dowel in the window track to prevent the window from being opened and allowing an intruder access inside. 

Make Your House Look Inhabited

When you go on vacation, you don't want it to be obvious you are not there. Don't let your grass go without its weekly mowing. Ask a neighbor or hire a local teen to mow your lawn while you are out of town. Put your mail on hold with your local mail carrier. If you still subscribe to a daily newspaper, make sure one of your neighbors gets it from your driveway for you. If you request a hold on your newspaper subscription, the chances are pretty high that the newspaper carrier will deliver the paper anyway. Newspaper carriers have a lot of customers and not all subscription holds get taken care of.

Leave a lamp switched on in your living room or the stove light on in your kitchen so when you are gone from your home, it will still look as though you are home. You can ask a neighbor to come over and turn on a light inside your home and your outside porch lights at night. Porch lights on at night can deter a burglar from attempting a break in at your home because they won't be under the cover of darkness.

Keep Your Valuables Hidden

The average dollar loss per burglary offense in 2010 was $2119, so you want to keep any valuables hidden and safe. It is a good idea to keep any valuable jewelry, coins, and other small-sized, high-value items in a safety deposit box. 

Don't set up high value electronics across from any large windows in your home. If you can see your big screen television or expensive computer system in your home from the sidewalk of your front yard, so can a burglar.

Use these four tips to help keep you and your home safe. For more ideas, contact a local home security company. 


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