No matter how big or small your home is, keeping it safe against various threats is essential and should be approached with great care. Securing your possessions, ensuring that no one enters without permission and keeping safety high on your list of priorities is, therefore, a must. Here are ten cheap and effective ways to ensure this.
Clean the Snow and Mown the Lawn
Unattended houses are welcoming for burglars, and they admit they target those with no foot tracks in the snow. If you are out of town, ask your neighbors or friends to clean the snow, mown the lawn and trim the bushes and thus make it look as if you are at home.
New Locks
Do not rely on knob locks only – these are quite easy to penetrate and your house is less than secure with only these to protect you. On the other hand, if you install top locks and additional deadbolts, you will raise the level of your security and feel more at ease.
New Door Jambs
Together with locks, you should install reinforcement for your door jambs and frames. As weak ones are easy to kick in and quite useless, reinforcing them is a sensible solution – and it does not cost much.
Get New Windows
A number of burglars still practice the traditional break-and-enter tactic through the window not because they prefer it, but because windows are generally the weak points of home security. For a moderate amount of money, you can install thicker glass windows that make a big difference.
Lock the Windows
Finally, while getting some thick glass windows is enough, they are useless if left unlocked. This can sound prosaic and simple at first, but be sure to lock the windows every time you leave the house and, especially, when going out of town.
Fake Stickers, Real Protection
Burglars generally prefer safe jobs and old and helpless people, but once you let them know that you are protected, they will not test their luck. Therefore, just a simple alarm system decal and stickers will do the trick: you do not need an alarm system to put them on and use the gullibility of thieves.
Lights ScaresBurglars
Professional burglars expect things to go according to their plan and as soon as one small detail is out of order, their operation is set for failure. If they see lights connected to motion-sensors turning on once they make a wrong step, they are most likely to give up trying to rob your house.
Secure with Security Cameras
Of course, there can be no absolute home safety, but installing security cameras can help a great deal in discouraging burglary. They protect you on two levels – preventively, as burglars rarely target houses with visible surveillance system, and concretely, as they record any potential threats so you can submit that footage to the police.
Canine Protection
Even though some people say that keeping a dog is problematic because burglars can befriend them, a good dog ensures more than enough security around the house. Of course, some breeds like German Shepherd, Rottweiler or Doberman are preferred, but a smaller dog can make a lot of noise as well.
The Illusion Saves the Day
Remember the kid from Home Alone who protected his house by playing a loud movie on his VCR? This may look silly and funny, but is quite effective. Leaving a TV or some music on will create an illusion that someone is in the house, and it will not significantly reflect on your electric bill.
Combine Ideas
You should not depend on only one of these solutions, but include several of those – ensure extra door safety, do not let anyone know you are not at home and ask your neighbors to keep an eye on your house – to be sure you are protected enough.