Going away for a vacation? Don’t forget your home. Thieves won’t.
Thieves prowl neighbourhoods looking for “home alones,” homes where owners have abandoned for a vacation. Don’t abandon your home. Instead, take precautions to make it secure while you are away. Make your home look like someone has stayed behind even though you have taken a holiday.
Here are 5 important security steps you can take to give your home that lived in look.
- No newspapers, flyers, mail on the doorstep
Arrange with relatives, family or neighbours to have your door front cleared of all deliveries, flyers, newspapers, deliveries. Nothing sends a message of an abandoned home as clearly as a pile of deliveries at the front doorstep. - Turn the lights on; play the radio
Use electrical timers to control lights being turned on and off, radios being turned on and off in various parts of your home. You can set up the timers so that lights are turned on in various parts of your home at scheduled times. Even better, buy timers which allow you to have changing times so that there is no regular pattern as to when or which room has lights turned on or that the radio plays at the same time and shuts off at the same time every night. Thieves are more sophisticated than we would like them to be. - Turn down the heat but clear the snow
If you are a snowbird, turn your home thermostat down to save heating costs and fuel waste. However, don’t turn off the heat. To avoid flooding and water damage from frozen pipes keep your furnace on.Also, have someone clean the snow from your walks making it look like someone is home.
- Have someone check up on your home at irregular intervals
You will have added peace of mind if you arrange for someone to check up on your house from time to time while you are away. If they are a trusted family member or friend, give them the key to the house so they can enter it and inspect your home and ensure all is as it should be. - Get a babysitter for your home
Tell a neighbour or a family member that you are away for specific calendar days. This way they know your home is alone and needs a bit of safety checking. Give this person a contact phone number and the number to your local police department, in case they discover something has happened on one of their inspections.
