Beefing Up Your Home Security

There is nothing more important than the security of your home. Even if you live in the safest of areas, taking care of your property, belongings, and most especially family members, cannot be ignored. If you’re in the process of making any changes to your home, you should consider adding beefing up your home security to your list.

Add a Surveillance Camera System

Having “eyes” on your house 24/7 is not possible without help. Surveillance systems are not as expensive as you think. Typically camera systems are either wireless or wired. A wired system has long cables run from a hard drive to the camera. This supplies power to the camera and records activity. Wireless systems can run off of batteries or have a power cord that has to be plugged into an outlet. 

We have both wired and wireless battery operated cameras. Clearly a battery operated system is the easiest to install, but batteries can be expensive and depending on the sensitivity settings, need to be replaced often.  Our wired system records continually 24 hours a day. This is beneficial if you need to investigate an incident that happened days before. Most systems have a terabyte of storage and will hold recording for close to 30 days. The oldest recordings drop off as new images are recorded.

Maintain Entry Points

Keeping intruders from being able to make entry to your home is paramount. This starts by making sure that those entry points are secure. A garage door that does not shut securely is just inviting thieves to steal your possessions. You need to invest in garage door repair to keep intruders out. It’s also imperative that you keep your garage door closed when you are not outside. Going in the house for the evening while your  garage door is open is an invitation for someone to grab items and run.   

In the same vein, if your entry doors are not latching properly, you and your possessions are vulnerable. I’m not suggesting that you barricade yourself in your home but if you have a door that can be blown open by the wind, this is clearly a problem. Having door hardware in good working order is not an expensive thing to do. If you have faulty door handles, gets those fixed so your house can be secured. 

If you have doors with electronic keypad entry, don’t give the code to people; even friends. If you have people who’ll need to enter your home on a temporary basis, program a special code just for them. Then when it’s no longer needed; erase that code. You don’t want strangers getting a hold of your keypad code to be able to easily unlock and make entry to your home.

Keep Windows in Working Order

Let’s face it, your home has a lot more windows than doors. It seems like a no brainer, but if you have windows with locks that don’t work, this is a vulnerable spot. The same can be said if your windows don’t close all the way. You may think that if a broken window is on the second floor, you’re in the clear. Remember, if someone wants to make entry to your home badly enough, they’ll find a way to that second floor window. Don’t take for ignore any vulnerable areas of your home.

You may want to be sure your blinds or drapes are closed when you’re not home to keep prying eyes from seeing your belongings.

Adding an Alarm System

Finally, you should think about investing in a new alarm system for your home. If you’re concerned with the cost of installation and monitoring; there are many alarm systems that you can install yourself. Having doors and windows set to alert if they are opened is a huge deterrent to anyone who has made illegal entry to your home. 

Professional, monitored alarm companies often times run specials that offer installation for free or for a big discount. Most of these companies will require a long term contract so be careful when entering into an agreement for their services. An additional benefit to monitored systems is they will notify local police if a breach has been made and many will also notify the fire department if a fire is detected.

Hopefully you’ll never have to experience any kind of break in or burglary of your home. Help eliminate your chances of being a victim by beefing up your home security and following these simple tips to make your home more secure.