Here’s a few tips for making your home more secure.
1) Lighting is your best and cheapest defence against burglaries. If a burglar can be seen it’s much more risky for them to target your house. Neighbours and passerbys could potentially see them and notify the police. Use an energy efficient compact fluorescent bulb in your front and rear porch light and leave them on all nite. You can automate this by connecting them to a timer or photocell.
2) Make sure your house is not hidden from view. At least make sure that your front door can be seen from the street.
Clear away overgrown shrubbery from the front of your house. Don’t give potential burglars anything that they can use to conceal their activities.
3) Install motion sensors to light up the dark areas of your property.There’s nothing more startling to someone approaching your home to be suddenly bathed in light.
Motion sensors are very cheap and can be installed easily in existing or new light outlets. They can be set to stay on for a set period of time when triggered by motion.
4) When you go on vacation, connect some lamps in your home to plugin timers. Some timers allow you to set multiple on/off events every 24 hours. Do this with 2 or 3 lamps to give the impression that someone is home in the evenings.
This is especially important if someone is watching your house to determine if anybody is home. Ask your neighbor to pickup mail and newspapers every day. There’s nothing like a pile of newspapers on your front porch to tip off a burglar that you’re away.
5) Install dead bolt locks on all your doors. This is a fairly inexpensive way to secure your home. Deadbolts cannot be picked as easily as regular door locks. This is something the average homeowner can install with a minimum of tools.
Your best defense is to make sure that it appears that someone is always home, even when you’re not. For even more security consider installing a burglar alarm in your home.