Home Security Resources - 02

8 Steps To Better Home Security
This informative article lays out eight simple and concrete steps you can take right now to help insure the safety of your home and your family. Steps include such things as making sure that your home always appears occupied, even when it's not. Several specific things you must do to keep your home appearing occupied are included, such as making certain mail and newspapers don't pile up and leaving the TV or radio on loud enough to be heard at the front door. Additional ideas for keeping you and your home and family safe include creating a perimeter fence around your property, making sure all entrances are well lit, installing deadbolts and peepholes in doors, securing all windows and other entrances, such as through garages. Finally they suggest that you consider installing an alarm system and that you keep a list of all your valuables just in case all of your other measures have proven innefective.

Home Security Tips from a Local Sheriff's Department
The Seattle Police Department has some recommendations to help you secure your home and reduce the threat of burglary. Before making any security improvement, the department suggests identifying the most likely entry points a burglar would use. And the best way to do this is to ask two questions: 1) which entrances are hidden out of view of your neighbors; and 2) if I get locked out of my house, where might a get back in with the least amount of difficulty—every door and window listed should be labeled a number one priority. Now for the basic security improvements: The key concept is to make a burglar take as much time and possible and create as much noise as possible breaking into your home. Thus, make doors strong enough to withstand a lot of force and secure them with a deadbolt lock with a minimum one-inch throw, and anchor strike plates and frames to the home's main construction. Double-hung windows should be secured with pins or extra locks. Trim trees and shrubs to allow visibility along the perimeter, especially the entries, of the house. Install interior and exterior lights with times that activate them in your absence, and make sure all doors and windows are well lit at night. There are many more recommendation on this page, including a discussion about installing an alarm.

An Ex-Burglar's Take on Home Security
Let a former burglar give you the low-down on home burglaries from the criminal's point of view. This is an eye-opening interview with a (former) professional in the B&E (Breaking and Entering) trade in the United Kingdom: Michael Fraser,a whom the author invited to case her home and assess how easy it would be to break in. Fraser is quite well known and consults for companies and gives his advice on home security. Some tips from various sources: Dogs are a deterent, and house alarms will keep some burglars away, but alarms don't scare off many because it takes the police anywhere from 10 to 15 minutes to respond to an alarm and a professional B&E man is in and out of your house in 5 minutes. Most burglaries do not take place at night, but take place during the day, when people are not home. In fact, the majority of burglaries take place between 9 a.m. and noon. Learn what burglars look for when they choose a house to rob, and what you can do to make your home less inviting. The number one thing you can do to keep crooks out, according to this former burglar, is simply lock your doors and windows. Bathroom and kitchen windows are the ones most often left unlocked. Make sure all of your doors have deadbolts. A regular door lock is considered a joke by professional burglars, but a good deadbolt makes your home a difficult target, and most home burglars are looking for easy targets. There are 7 major steps you can take to protect your home and property from break-ins, according to this former felon; if you want to learn them all then I suggest you check out this site before you leave home again.