Regardless of whether you rent or own your home, you want your residence to be secure. Perhaps you are unaware of how to secure your home. This article is your solution. Continue reading to find out how you can make your home a much safer environment.

Use your dog as the protector of your spare key. If your dog lives outside or is able to come and go through a dog door, this is a viable idea. Attach the spare key to your dog’s collar. By doing this, you have a handy spare key whenever you need it.

Make sure your home appears occupied. You can purchase timers that can control your household electronics such as lights, TVs and radios. This way, it will appear that you are at home. This is great for keeping a home safer from burglaries.

Eliminate dead vegetation and rotting wood from the yard each summer. These are vulnerable to fires and put your home in danger. Therefore, you need to regularly clean your yard so that your home is protected.

When you’re picking out home security equipment and services, don’t forget to ask your friends and family for help. Others may have had bad and good experiences that they share with you so that you may be able to save time and stress. Sometimes, you may get great advice from the people you know.

See what the local police offer when it comes to home protection programs. There are plenty of things that can be done, from a safety walk to cataloging expensive items to help protect your investment and your family. Talk with local police to see if they offer these programs.

Don’t let strangers enter your house. Even if their story is compelling, they need assistance or want to sell you something. Even home security representatives could be intruders who want to check the kind of protection you have.

The first step in making your home more secure is to change out your locks. If you have boarders, former live-in partners, or others who once had access to your home, this is especially important. It is pretty cheap and the job won’t take more than a few hours.

If you do not know the person at your door, don’t open it. Burglars have many clever ways to convince householders to open the door. Create a rule where you only allow those you’ve invited to your home inside.

Make certain no one can see your valuable belongings through windows and doors. While having huge windows may be good for letting in light and viewing what is outside, it also gives potential thieves a good look in your own home. You should cover any windows that are facing the street so your valuables will be safe.

Car Inside

Always lock your home, even if you plan on coming back within a few minutes. It may be shocking, but many home invasions and burglaries occur by intruders walking through the front door that was left open. A burglar can steal a lot of expensive stuff in a short amount of time.

You should always park your car inside your garage instead of using your garage to store some belongings. A car kept locked in a garage is much less likely to be stolen or damaged. Besides, intruders will have a hard time determining whether or not you are home if you keep your car inside your garage.

If you have just moved into a new home, have every single lock replaced. It may seem as if the former owners of the home are honest, but really you don’t know much about them. Besides, other tenants or owners might have copies of the key if the previous owners did not change the locks.

Always have your security system checked each year. Ask the security company to send a technician out to give your system a thorough inspection. A number of factors can cause problems with your security system, including wild animals and mother nature. If you aren’t paying attention, you may not be aware of these problems.

There is a lot of value in copper wiring. Lots of people fail to appreciate this until they are hit by thieves. The copper inside the wire is very valuable and may be stripped off the exterior of the house in a short time span. To protect this expensive asset, hide your wires or make them hard to get to.

Walls are great for hiding things. If you own smaller things that need protection, think about keeping them hidden in the walls. Just access unused switch plates, outlets or phone jacks. If you do not have any unused plates, it is easy to install a false one.

Be certain to read the entire contract when you hire a home security firm. There may be some hidden fees, or a need to buy more equipment later. You should avoid such expenses if you can, so make yourself aware.

Keep valuables hidden within the walls. You don’t have to damage the walls to do so. There should be pre-cut spaces throughout your home that will suffice. Perhaps you could deactivate a few unused electrical sockets to use as a place to store stuff.

Keep your outdoor areas well lit. Darkness allows for all sorts of nefarious activities. Motion sensor lights can work great because they can also alert you when someone does come onto the property. Having these outdoor lights installed can really work as a deterrent to criminals who are considering your house.

Keep the wires of your home security system hidden. If the wires are exposed, an intruder can bypass the system by cutting its wires. Instead, make sure the wires are hidden. Your system will be far more effective this way.

Install a surveillance system in your home. Both hidden and visible video cameras can help keep your home safe. Visible cameras deter the majority of intruders, and if they try to disarm them, a camera that is hidden will keep capturing footage. A lot of surveillance systems are accessible using your cell phone, so you can monitor your home while you are out of town.

Rotted Wood

Can someone standing in the middle of the street see clearly your house numbers? If there is need for cops to come to your home, it will be hard for them to find it if the numbers are not readable or are tiny. Just replace them if you need to.

Rotted wood in your door framing should be replaced. It is simple for a robber to pry away rotting wood and enter your home. Be sure and replace rotted wood with fresh wood in order to ensure home safety.

A dog is a great home security alarm. Usually, dogs protect their homes and when they sense something is wrong, they bark. There is no need for a guard dog. Small dogs are noisy and unpredictable and very good at deterring burglars.

Make sure to ask for identification for any home security company representative. You would be surprised how many thieves will impersonate security representatives to get into your house. This is dangerous to your valuables and your family. Be careful if you want to avoid danger.

Keeping people out of various areas of your home does not have to involve using multiple locks and keys. If you do have areas to lock, consider getting keyless locks that you can open using a code, rather than carrying a huge ring of keys around with you. Any good security company can provide and install these locks, or you can even put them in yourself.

If you need to make the outside of your home secure, you can achieve this relatively inexpensively by installing lights with motion detectors. At night, the lights will keep things bright round the house, but they are also efficient and cost-effective ways to help your security. If the lights are positioned correctly on your home, then it makes it much less likely for a burglar to enter.

Do not buy spring latch locks. These locks can easily be picked within a couple of minutes. This isn’t a difficult maneuver either. If you’ve already got spring latch locks, you can put in a deadbolt for additional security.

Get going, now that you are armed with lots of useful knowledge. You should not wait, especially if you have reasons to believe your home could be a target. Use them as a starting point to generate additional ways on your own that can help keep your home safe. Once you improve your home’s security, you will sleep better at night.

Secure any valuables which can’t be replaced. Passports, financial records, jewelry, photos or legal documents should be locked away. Floor safes make for great places to hide such items. It is even better to rent a safe deposit container for absolute security.