Home Safety
Lock Your Doors Please remember to put your garage doors down, lock your house and car doors and and pay attention to your surroundings. If you haven’t met your neighbors, please introduce yourself.
Lighting Keep your house well lit at night. Use porch and motion detector lights. If you are away, use multiple timers on indoors lights and stagger the times.
Line of Sight You need to be able to see who is at your door or around your house if you hear something. Install a wide angle peephole. Keep shrubbery trimmed. Don’t
make it easy to climb up landscaping and into a second floor window. Call the police, 645-4545, if you see something odd.
Put steel or wood dowels in sliding doors and lock your windows and other doors.
Install an alarm These usually call police or fire for you and come with signage.
Holidays As the holidays near, you certainly will be purchasing a lot of nice giftd for your loved ones. Some you will purchase at a store, some you
will have shipped to your house. The ones shipped to your house are usually left on the doorstep by the delivery man. If you know that something is
coming, ask a neighbor to pick it up or leave a note for the driver to leave the package in a more hidden location. Also, you may be leaving wrapped gifts out in the open inside your house. It is important that these are not easily viewed from a window or door.
Engrave your valuables Put your ID on stuff. This allows for the tracking of items. Also record the serial numbers. If something bad does happen, serial numbers will be needed by the police to help track your items. This is also a deterrent for those items to be stolen and then pawned.
Dogs Dogs make noise and get in the way. Even the beware of dog signs can help, if you don’t have a dog.
Mail and paper If you are going away, stop them or have someone pick them up for you. Also have someone pick up the door bags or other notifications that may be left while you are away.
Don’t open the door for strangers. Often, they will just knock on the door to see if you are home. Sometimes, they will pretend to be salespersons, just wanting a peek inside or to get you to open your door. My favorite is they need a dollar to catch a bus or get some gas. You can talk through the door and see if it is a legitimate person.
Other
Tips Leave a radio on if you are away. Blockwatch signage, which we have. Dog and/or alarm signage. Battery operated motion alarms. Dark curtains or closed blinds. Don’t put out your recycling and trash too early. These items could be watched. Also, if you have a major purchase, like a TV, this could an advertisement. Take the packaging to a recycling center.
And always report suspicious behavior Call the police non-emergency line and email me for tracking with an accurate description of the persons and event.