Leaving your home unattended for any period can be daunting, unless of course you have the proper home security gear.
Break-ins and robberies capture news headlines making me conscious about how I manage all my stuff and assure my home safety.
Surprisingly, I’ve learnt several tips from my mother, which I share in this article. The other home security hacks I’ve learnt along the way.
1. Let Others Think You're Home
There are many ways to trick thieves into thinking you’re home.
A person driving past your home should not be able to notice your empty house.
This can be achieved in many ways like simply using human-like figures like puppets etc. so that the person passing by thinks these puppets as people in the house.
Unless you’re a gadget wiz like Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone, your puppets or inflatables won’t be moving like real people.
This shouldn’t matter too much and should be sufficient to throw off would be thieves.
Puppets can be erected behind the curtains or translucent glasses of doors and windows.
Another good idea is to leave some electronic audio devices on with music playing that let people think somebody is home.
2. Using two door system at the entrance instead of just one
It’s always better to have two doors at the entrance.
It adds to the safety of your house.
You can try one hack here.
Close both the doors but never close the front door (the first one) with the external locking system.
Either have embedded door locks on the front gates or just close the second door so that it doesn’t appear from outside the house.
Actually when you lock your front door with a big lock hanging in front which is visible to everyone who crosses your house gate, risk of theft increases as burglars are always in search of such buildings whose owner is out, leaving the home alone.
3. Use alarming gadgets for doors and windows
One hack that is very useful and one of my favorites is using alarming gadgets.
These gadgets are generally fixed at the doors and windows.
What I like the most in these gadgets is its easy handling and fixing ways.
You need to do nothing but purchase a set of alarming devices and fix them at doors and windows where there is a risk of obtrusion.
These are battery supported devices and once fixed doesn’t need any maintenance and you only need to switch it ‘on’ while going out.
As somebody would try to peep in your house, these alarms would siren up and let the people in or around your house about the intrusion.
4. Ensuring Safety through Mobile Controllable Cameras
World is evolving and there is technological advancement every second.
You can use technology to secure your house.
Although this is not actually a hack but a way to protect your home and to have an eye over the activities of any place you might want to monitor.
Using your third eye i.e. mobile controllable cameras, you can monitor your home (in and out) anytime anywhere.
Using your mobile phones, which are common in every pocket these days, you can track the activities going on in or around your house or any localized area owned by you and others.
These cameras come with amazing features like if someone approaches close to the area where your camera is placed your phone would receive a notification of that and if you wish you can rotate the cameras at a click of your finger.
So this is really something that would take you towards technological based security systems.
5. Hide Valuable Items
We all have valuable stuff in our houses – some things of monetary value, others of sentimental value.
Home safes are great at not only securing your valuables but also keeping them out of site.
Here’s a guide I wrote on how to find the right safe for your needs.
6. Beware of Dogs
For safety, you can use warning sign boards like the ones with “beware of dogs” warning on them.
However, it’s not necessary to have a dog to get such signboards printed.
These are for the sake of your personal safety and the outsiders would remember your house and would never dare to enter in your absence as for them, you have a dog domesticated at your house who bites.
This hack came to my mind as I was passing by a gate where I saw such a signboard but as to my knowledge, the house owner didn’t own any dog.
And yes, if you are an animal lover and can have a pet, you can have a dog which could increase your home's safety.
7. Flowing current in metallic wires around your gates and entry points/fences
You need to set up fences of metallic wires above the walls and make sure to let the current (electrons) flow through the fence.
It would be good as whenever you would need to go out, you just need to switch on the current flow in these fences and relax.
Your home safety would now be the responsibility of these current carrying wires.
Amazing, right?
8. Crime Tracking App
Here’s a great article on the best apps and websites to help you find safe neighborhoods.
9. Password locking systems
These days password protected locking systems are available and cracking passwords by someone who didn’t set it is a reasonably hard task.
Therefore, if you have some extra money to spend on your domestic safety, you can try this one.
Please drop a comment if you have a home safety hack not mentioned above and I’ll include it in the list.
