Protect Your Home as Well as Your Family
By T. R. Walton

How secure is your home? How accessible is your home?

How often do you ask yourself these questions. Your home is where you and your family want to be safe from the daily stresses of life and most definitely from crime. A burglary happens every 15 seconds in this country. Though many intrusions are non confrontational have you ever asked yourself what if I or my family were home during a burglary? Most Burglaries happen during daytime hours because this is the time many of us are working, going to school, etc. The typical burglar is looking for anything of value. Rape and/or sexual assault after a break-in happens almost regularly during the summer months when windows and doors are left open and unlocked. If you try to think like a burglar for a minute the first step in planning a break-in would be to figure out when the home owners are not home. You would watch the daily routine of the homes occupants. The next step would be to figure out how difficult gaining entry to the house would be.

A couple of things come to mind here; Locked doors and windows, alarm systems, and even surveillance cameras now. Burglars are going to enter your home by either walking right thru an unlocked door or open window, using tools to break in or unlock the existing locks, or simply using force to gain entry. So let's look at the first steps in preventing a burglary.

Door and window locks are the homes initial barrier to be overcome by an intruder. Typically the garage and rear doors of the house are the weakest entry points, as well as first floor windows on the sides and rear of the home. These areas may also provide cover for the burglar. You will want to make sure your locks make it very difficult to gain entry. Use a solid core or metal door for all entry areas, a quality, heavy-duty, deadbolt lock with a one-inch throw bolt, a quality, heavy-duty, knob-in-lock set with a dead-latch mechanism, and a heavy-duty strike plate with 3-inch screws to penetrate into a wooden door frame. Sliding glass doors have blocking bars that can be inserted in the track to prevent the door from sliding open. You can use pins that slide thru the track as well to prevent sliding or lifting of the door. Windows are often left open during the summer months. Blocking devices are necessary to keep the window from opening further than six inches. Certainly not wide enough to allow a burglar to reach in and unlock or remove the blocking device.

If an intruder does make it into your home via a door, broken window, etc. we suggest the  arming of your home with an alarm system that is monitored and dispatched to police,  or simply having a detection and sound alarm device designed to not only scare off an intruder but also warn anyone who may be home at the time. Examples of such alarms would be door and window sound alarms, motion alarms, vibration alarms, etc.

Alarm yard signs and window decals are also a great deterrent, as well as the lighting in and around your home. We suggest using floodlights with motion sensors around the exterior of your home and timers that your lights and appliances plug into which will come on automatically, simulating people at home.

In addition, you may purchase surveillance cameras to help further deter and/or monitor your home intrusions when you are not there.