With home invasions and break-ins on the rise throughout the nation, it’s important to understand how to go about protecting your home and your family against these potentially life-threatening crimes.
This article offers comprehensive home security tips to help protect against home invasions and break-ins by world-renowned home security expert, Jordan Frankel. By incorporating these measures into your home security plan, you can better secure your home and the safety of you and your family members.
Home Alarm Systems
According to Jordan Frankel, every residence should have an alarm system with a blaring siren. However, an alarm system is only effective when it is turned on. Many residents forget to set their home alarm systems when they leave the house. They also fail to keep their alarms set when they are home. DON’T BE THIS PERSON! Keep your alarm system turned on every time you leave as well as when you are home.
When it comes to home alarm systems, you want to ensure the following:
- The alarm system should have an extremely loud siren. This will contribute to the startle effect that can give an intruder reason to abandon the plan and leave the scene to avoid being apprehended.
- Ensure your home alarm system is connected to a central monitoring station where operators monitor for system alerts. This will ensure your local law enforcement agency is alerted the moment the alarm is triggered.
- Prominently display the alarm company signs that come with your alarm system to alert criminals that your home is being monitored. This will help deter would-be intruders.
- Be sure the alarm has a back-up battery and cellular dialer in case a burglar cuts the power. This will ensure the alarm still functions and notifies the monitoring station.
- Alarm systems with glass breakage and motion sensors can serve as early warnings of a break-in. Such alerts can give you and your loved ones the time you need to seek safety as you wait for police to arrive.
- Make sure the central panel of the home alarm system is located in a utility room or locked cabinet inside your home. This will prevent potential intruders from tampering with it.
Lighting
Proper lighting of the exterior and interior of your property can serve as a deterrent for would-be intruders. Burglars prefer to target homes that offer darkness, as this makes it easier to sneak in and avoid being seen while breaking into the premises.
The following are Jordan Frankel’s tips when it comes to home security and lighting:
- Motion-activated LED lights should be a part of every resident’s home security plan. The brighter the lights the better. Again, this contributes to the startle effect and puts the spotlight on the intruder.
- Keep in mind that motion-activated lights are only effective when they detect an intruder’s movements. To ensure your property is always properly lit, install low-wattage, energy-efficient light fixtures with an automatic dusk-till-dawn feature. This will keep the perimeter of your property softly lit throughout the night and prevent devious criminals from hiding among the shadows.
- For indoor lighting, use light timers or SMART devices connected to your cell phone to switch lights, a television, and/or radio on and off at varying intervals. This will make it appear someone is home even when you’re not. To make this even more effective, keep your curtains and/or blinds closed so would-be intruders can’t see inside your home.
Entry Doors and Windows
You can drastically reduce a criminal’s access into your home with a few simple door and window security devices, some of which are highly affordable. The security of your entry doors and ground-level windows is extremely important, because these are the most common entry points for burglars and home invasion criminals.
The following are how to better secure the entry points to your residence and protect against home intruders:
- Always keep your windows and doors locked—even when you’re home!
- If your entry doors are hollow, replace them with solid wood or metal doors and reinforce the hinges with 3.5″ screws made of steel.
- Equip all entry doors with a heavy duty deadbolt and a security door brace, such as the OnGARD by Global Security Experts. To see what a difference this simple yet highly effective security door brace can make, check out this demo video.
- To prevent your windows from being slid open enough for an intruder to slip through, place a thick metal or solid wooden dowel in the tracks of your windows and sliding glass doors. For windows that slide up and down, there are simple and affordable locking mechanisms you can purchase at most local hardware stores that can help reinforce your standard locks.
- Glass window and door panes can be easily broken, especially by a career criminal. It is for this reason that window glass protection film is so important. In addition to being quite affordable, high quality glass protection film such as BurglarGARD reinforces glass panes so that they cannot be easily broken.
Garage
Garages are common entry points for thieves. This is because residents often forget to lock the doors that lead into the garage, and many also fail to close their garage doors when they leave.
Here’s what you need to do to keep intruders from accessing your home through the garage:
- Never leave your garage door open. If there are no vehicles parked inside or outside the garage, it will send the message that no one is home as well as allow easy entry into your home.
- Keep all doors that lead into the garage locked at all times! Any door that swings inward should have a heavy-duty deadbolt and a security door brace installed on it, just like the front door to your home. If the door that leads from your garage into your house swings outward (toward the garage), it should also have a heavy-duty deadbolt lock on it, in addition to a lock on the doorknob.
- Reset the codes on the remotes to your garage door as often as possible. This will decrease the chance of a criminal hacking into your garage.
- Be sure your garage is part of your home alarm system. If your garage has windows, install glass breakage sensors and motion detectors to them so that you can be forewarned if someone attempts to break in.
Landscaping
The landscaping around your residence can help thwart or facilitate a burglar’s plan. This is why it’s important to take the time to assess your landscaping and eliminate the things that make accessing your home easier.
Here’s what you need to take into consideration when assessing the exterior of your property:
- Criminals such as burglars prefer a place they can hide or take cover in while they are attempting to gain access to your home. It is for this reason that you want to keep shrubs/bushes near doors and windows trimmed back.
- Walls and trees near the perimeter of your home can be climbed to access second-floor windows and balconies. Be sure to assess your yard for walls, trees, and other landscaping that pose a security risk. If you can’t afford to remove or relocate them, be sure to reinforce the security of the potential entry points that such landscaping may allow access to.
- To further hinder burglars and other intruders, plant shrubs with thorns such as roses, holly, and barberry next to windows. Certain palms also have sharp thorns. You should also consider adding noise-producing gravel or small landscaping rocks as a way to further deter potential intruders.
When it comes to protecting against home invasions and break-ins, you can never have enough security measures in place. To ensure your home and your family are protected, take the advice of residential security expert himself, Jordan Frankel, and put in place the security measures discussed above before an intruder finds his way into your home.