Protecting Your Family from Home Invaders

The security of your family is very important. Not everyone can afford home security systems or guns. This article describes several easy and inexpensive ways to prepare a home to protect your family.

Always know that if someone wants to break into your home badly enough, they will find a way. That doesn't mean that you should make it easy for them to do so. It is surprising to me how many people have told me that they lock the doors to their home only while away. This is very dangerous! Purchase a deadbolt lock for any doors that are easily accessible to the public and keep these doors locked at all times. Start a habit of locking all doors at all times. If you leave to go to the store, lock the door behind you. When you get home... lock the door behind you. Teach children to lock doors behind them and to always see who is knocking at the door or ringing the doorbell before opening the door.

If the home is equipped with wooden window panes, use a power drill to drill a hole in one corner of each window where the upper and lower panes meet. Make the hole large enough to insert a heavy gauge nail. The nail should be easy to remove in case of emergency. It's not a bad idea to tie a piece of string to the head of the nail to make it easy to pull out. The point of the nail is to make the window difficult to open from the outside.

To secure a sliding glass door, cut a broom handle or stick to fit the space in the track behind the door where it slides when it is opened. It is very easy to bypass the latch on a sliding glass door, so be sure to leave the stick in position while the door is not in use. If you have a fenced-in yard, be sure to lock the gate when not-in-use. Also lock storage sheds with a lock large enough that it may be seen from outside the fence.

Leave a light on during the night, both inside the house and outside. This may just deter someone from breaking in if they think someone may be awake inside the house. Also, it's easier for crooks to operate in the dark. If you own a dog, give them full run of the house during the night. They have amazing hearing and will let you know if someone is snooping around outside.

Cover all windows with shades or blinds at night so that it is difficult to see into the home. If it is easy for someone to see from the outside that you own the latest game system, a huge expensive TV, or maybe some expensive artwork, then it may prove tempting for a would-be thief to put your home at the top of their list. Actually, if you can afford all of these high-dollar items, then a home security system is probably a wise investment too. The bottom line is that your family's safety comes before all material things. If you find yourself in the situation where someone has entered your home, let them take your money or some of your belongings if it means that they leave without harming anyone. Then call the police and file a report

How to Secure Your Home While Away on Summer Vacation

Keep your home safe.

Summer time is the perfect time to go away for a relaxing vacation.  An unguarded home, however, is a perfect target for thieves.  Take a few precautions before you leave for vacation to provide you peace of mind and true relaxation

Secure your important information.  Purchase a removable or external hard disk drive for your computer.  Save all important files and financial records on this hard disk drive only and not on your primary hard drive.  This portable drive should be removed from your home when you are away for extended periods and may be stored in a safe deposit box.  All important hard copies of deeds, licenses, birth certificates, social security cards, unused credit cards, etc. should be kept secure in an off-site safe deposit box as well.

Secure the perimeter of your home.  If you have a sliding glass door, place a broom handle or stick in the track of the door to prevent it from being opened.  The latch on a sliding glass door is very easy to bypass.  Drill holes in an upper corner of all lower wooden window panes and insert a long nail, which will make opening the window difficult from outside the home.

Ask a friend or trusted neighbor to collect your mail each day while you are away and to walk around your home and look for anything strange.  If possible, leave at least one car parked in your driveway and leave a few lights on inside the home.  Purchase several timers and set them to turn on at dusk and turn off around the time you would normally go to bed.  If a crook is watching your house, this may fool them into believing that someone is home.

Perform a walk-through of your entire home and film everything using a video camera.  Store the tape along with all other important items in your safe deposit box.  This evidence will be useful to provide to the police and your insurance company if someone does manage to break in and steal or damage items in your home.

Walk around both the inside and outside of your home one last time before you leave.  Unplug any dangerous or energy inefficient appliances and raise the temperature slightly on the thermostat.  Check that your oven is turned off.  Close all blinds or curtains, making it difficult to see into the home from outside.  Make sure all exterior doors are locked and place padlocks on all gates, storage buildings, and crawlspace doors.

How to Clean Your Home a Little Each Day

In one week or less, a home can transform from a perfectly clean living space to a completely horrific nightmare of clutter. It's difficult to explain what causes this phenomenon, but there are several easy solutions to recover from it.

In most homes, it is natural for clutter to accumulate in a short period of time. This does not mean that the inhabitants are filthy people or that they do not care to keep a clean home. Clutter is evidence that people; busy people at that, are living in the home. The following steps should assist in maintaining a clean home within a budgeted amount of time.

Share the responsibility! If two or more people live in the same home, then each should be responsible for cleaning it unless one of them is under the age of three. Everyone should take responsibility for their own belongings and also for their messes. This is simple. If only one person in the home wears a size 13 shoe and there are two of them lying in the living room floor, it is that person's responsibility to relocate the shoes to a closet or appropriate storage space. If food that is packaged in a wrapper is opened and consumed, the wrapper should be deposited in the garbage can and not on the coffee table or on the floor.

Use the "Back and Forth" method of spot cleaning. This really works! Start at one end of the home and identify all of the things that do not belong. Pick up a few; not too many, and walk to the other end of the home. Upon passing the spot where each item belongs, deposit it neatly and continue on to the other side. Repeat this process, starting from the opposite end. With a radio positioned at a halfway point, music may be heard throughout the journey. Several things are accomplished using this method. The home slowly becomes organized. The person cleaning gets some valuable exercise and entertainment by singing and possibly dancing as they go. The entire house does not have to be cleaned each time this method is performed, but it is a useful means of managing clutter in high-traffic areas.

Once clutter has been cleared, it is a good idea to perform deeper cleaning. Scrub or mop floors, dust furniture, and vacuum carpets and rugs. As with the "Back and Forth" method of cleaning, deep cleaning does not have to be done all at once. Pick one day to clean the kitchen. Clean the bathrooms another day. Only do as much as time or energy allows.

By using these steps to keep a home in a manageable state, there will be less stress involved when a surprise visitor drops in unannounced.