Home security is always an important topic, but possibly even more so during the holidays. Many people with bad intentions try to take advantage of people being away during this time of year. Trying to grab newly purchased items meant to be gifts is another ugly reason for the increased risk.
Since your garage door is the biggest entrance to your home, and often one of the less secure, it only makes sense that it is often an entrance target of these low-life burglars. We know, because at Discount Garage Door Company, we see a lot of repair service calls for damaged overhead doors this time of year.
In addition to making sure your garage is as secure as possible (feel free to call us if you think yours needs some help, or watch the video for a quick solution to one ‘weak point’), below you’ll find some more great information on making many areas of your home beyond just the garage, safer and less vulnerable to break-ins.
Protect Your Garage From Vulnerabilities!
What are some of the things I should not do if I want burgers to bypass my home?
Well for one thing don’t leave that ladder you’ve been using to clean your gutters or windows against the house and opportunistic burglar could climb up to a second floor window and sometimes second floor windows aren’t wired to an alarm system if you have one it all so that makes a nice welcome for the burglar.
I’ve also heard my trash can be an invite, that true?
Yeah trash is a way for a burglar to scope out what you might have in the house. So on trash day, maybe especially after a big gift holiday, a burglar can see the empty boxes on the curb or in the alley, that show you just got a big screen or a Mac or something. So break down the boxes stuff them in the recycling or trash bins and protect yourself. Here’s another tip that might surprise you.
Okay what?
Do you have a mirror in your entry hall or way?
I do not but a lot of people do.
Maybe you’re better off without the mirror because an enterprising burglar could peep through the window or the door sidelights and use a properly placed mirror to see if the alarm system is on.
The lesson here is re-locate your whole mirror maybe you go out, look through your windows and see if you can see it. Another thing of course you don’t want to do is give a burglar a place to hide.
Right, so if you haven’t trimmed the trees and shrubs around your home, I recommend you do it. A burglar could use those shrubs as cover while he’s getting in through a window or door and you want to make sure that your front door, your windows, any entry points are visible from the street and another smart thing to do is to install motion sensor lighting so prep’s can’t easily hide in the dark.
Now you mention keeping shrubs trimmed. Now I keep my grass and lawn trimmed and looking good so even when I’m on vacation the place looks lived in.
Overgrown bushes near windows and the garage make for good hiding places for would-be burglars
Very good tip always and similarly, don’t keep your shades or blinds closed all the time. Set up lights on timers and if you leave your car in the driveway make sure it’s locked because a thief could take the garage door opener and open the garage and get into the house through a door that leads from the garage to the house.
Got it. What else?
So if you have any flimsy exterior doors such as a plane wood panel back door, you might want to consider replacing it with a really nice steel door and dead bolt because a thief could easily kick in that old wood door and plus they can hide sort of in the back yard while doing it and steel doors are usually the least expensive of exterior door types, generally and they’re a good barrier to break in. Can give you one more?
Yes of course.
Okay so careful about inviting people to your home if you’re selling stuff on Craigslist or some online marketplace. You want to meet the person in a public place like the parking lot of your local police station.
Yes or even the lobby as a matter of fact the people think well it sounds like you’d be imposing the police department. Most police departments actually encourage that and that that weeds out the robbers.
Yeah that’s great.
Are there any clever ways to hide valuables at home let’s say somebody gets in, I want to make sure that they can’t find the really valuable stuff.
Yeah. We found these really cool products out there that mimic other things. So for example we found this photo electrical panel that’s actually a wall safe with a combination lock and you could fit it in between standard wall studs, even in your garage where they wouldn’t be likely to look for a wall safe!
Right and wall safe of course are better than a standalone safe the burglar could just card off.
Right. And by the way the one we found is available at a company called Console Vaults. And there’s one more that we came across, have you ever looked at or seen the tops of your interior doors?
Why? I think just before sale when you’re dusting everything but other than that, no.
Right because exactly who would look there? So you can make your own mini safe that can live in your linen closet door or some other interior door. So you just need a hollow core interior door, a cigar tube and a few tools. And basically you drill a hole in the top of the door and slide the cigar tube in and it’ll seem to disappear flush against the top of the door and when you need to retrieve something from your little hidey hole, you can use a magnet to pull up the tube.
Great place for emergency cash or something, very clever, before we go let’s just remind folks to make a video inventory of their valuables.
Yes. Along with serial numbers and make sure you’re appropriately insured because high tech items sometimes like a professional camera set up might require an insurance writer.
Right and back of your computer of course just in case it gets swiped maybe put that information somewhere in the cloud or ordered someplace where you know you have a copy.
