Most people can’t wait till summer to finally relax and get away with family and friends. However, unsuccessfully preparing your property and home in your absence can turn into a huge, costly mistake.
Keep Your Home Safe
Most home break-ins could have easily been prevented if homeowners would only have taken the necessary steps to secure their home properly with a home monitoring system. The average loss for each burglary is more than $1,800. Therefore, securing the perimeter of your home could literally save you thousands of dollars overall.
Keep in mind that losses that stem from burglaries can also affect your homeowners insurance. So, it’s just plain smart to prepare your home ahead of time when you leave in order to save both trouble and money down the road.
Prepare Your Home
The best solution to keeping your home safe when you’re away is to simply make it look like you’re home and not leaving any clues behind that you are indeed gone. Time, noise, and light are your best weapons to pull this off. Follow these sensible tips to keep your home safe:
• Ask a trusted friend you know and completely trust to watch your house while you’re away.
• Use a timer on TVs and lights to emit sound and light inside your home to appear as if you are there.
• Open curtains and partially raise your blinds.
• Suspend the delivery of your newspaper and mail.
• Leave your air conditioner on low. A silent air conditioning unit on a hot summer day is a huge clue that you’re not home – a clever intruder will notice this right away.
• Arrange for someone to mow your lawn.
• Keep your home’s exterior well lit. Intruders won’t venture where they’ll be noticed.
Protect Your Home from Disaster
In addition to home invasion; it’s crucial to protect your home from other mishaps as well such as fire and floods.
Before you leave on vacation, unplug anything electrical except the refrigerator, freezer, and any devices plugged into a timer like lights and TVs. Make sure the stove, oven, and microwave along with any other heat-producing appliances like curling irons and hair dryers are turned off and unplugged.
Finally, turn your hot water heater down to the lowest setting possible – just enough to keep it functioning.
Rainy Day Funds
No one really knows what’s going to happen from day-to-day. That’s why it’s so important to keep a significant amount of money stashed away in case of any unexpected accidents or misfortunes to protect both your home and family.
Last Word on Home Invasion
More than 30% of all home burglaries happen without the invader using force to gain access to the home, which obviously means they simply entered through an unlocked window or door. For instance, you can secure a sliding glass door by putting a metal or wood rod in the track, or by installing a bolt lock.
Automatic garage door openers are an open gateway for home invaders since savvy burglars can decipher the code and open the garage door. Consider installing a home security system like ADT to fully secure your home and property.
Remember, boosting or upgrading the level of protection of your home against burglars and any other unforeseen disasters can save you dollars on your home insurance premiums too. So, be smart and employ all safety measures to keep your family and home safe and sound.