Personal Safety at Home

Securing your property will make you safer at home, and make your home and your belongings safer will you are out. Here are some home security tips for dealing with different situations you may find yourself in. If you think you have an intruder, only you can decide how to deal with the situation. Think about what you might do now-you might not be thinking clearly in a real incident. You may respond differently if you are alone in the house, or if there are other people there. You could make noise and hope it puts them off, or keep quiet and hope they don’t come into your room. You could keep a phone in your bedroom so you can raise the alarm.This may also make you feel safer. It is generally best not to challenge an intruder.

If you come home and find a broken window or lights on, and you think there may be a burglar inside, you may think it best to not go into the house. Go to a neighbor’s house and call the police, or ring the door-bell-someone who should be in the house will come to the door, whereas intruders are likely to run away.

Personal safety at home does not have to be complicated. Use a common sense approach and simply remember some basic home security tips. When you go out, always lock the door and close the windows-even if you are just going out for a short time. Window locks, especially older windows, will help stop people getting in (and remember, a burglar is less likely to break in if they have to smash a window (simply because they do not want to cut themselves). If you have deadlocks, use them. They make it harder for a thief to get out again.>But don’t leave the key in the lock or nearby in an obvious place.Don’t leave spare keys outside or in a garage or shed, and put car keys or garage keys out of sight in the house.Better yet, get a key lock box for your spare keys. Use timers for lights and radios if you need to be away from your home overnight. They will create the impression that someone is in.

Visible burglar alarms, good lighting, and carefully directed security lighting can put burglars off.But make sure that lights don’t disrupt your neighbors, and that the audible siren and the home alarm system reset themselves after 5 minutes. Fences at the back of the house may make the area more secure, but walls and solid fencing may let a thief break in without being seen. A good compromise is a chain-link fence, or trellises with prickly shrubs. Having something as simple as a door chain means that you can open the door a little way to talk to someone who you may not know, outside.

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