Travelling for a vacation or a business trip is all fun, especially when you come back to meet your home the way you left it. However, the scenario of vandalized properties, missing items, and other home in-eventualities can leave you unsettled at the end of your journey.
To enable you to have your home and its contents intact, we present these trusted and expert tips on securing your home when traveling as every home needs to be secured whether inhabited or not. Learn more information on how to keep your home safe at yourcalvert.com.
1. Conceal Your Absence
Making your absence obvious is a simple way of saying to burglars “come in and have your way” Ensure that your home appears occupied to passersby. You can do this by placing a hold on the delivery of mails/newspapers to your house. When they are littered at your door front, it announces your absence.
Use timers to switch on/off lights and other home appliances you do not want to turn off completely. The entire idea is to make it seem you are around while you are actually having a good time in a distant place.
On your social media space, resist the temptation of sharing pictures that reveal you’re out of the home, except with a few trusted friends and family.
2. Outdoor Security Lights are Necessary
Robbers and hoodlums are known to operate best in dark places, this is the reason you need to install outdoor security lights in areas that are vulnerable to burglary – like the back door; it becomes more visible to neighbours who may be keeping an eye on your house while you’re away.
It also scares potential thieves away. The good news is that it does not cost much energy, these security lights are usually wired to turn on, only at night.
3. Unplug Non-timed Electronics
Ensure to unplug those electronics that will not be useful in any way while you’re travelling. Besides saving you the cost of their energy consumption, unplugging these electronics reduces the risk of surges which may completely damage your equipment or result in fires. Malfunctioning may occur at any time, the best option is to unplug them, especially if they are not timed.
4. Turn off the Water Main
A lot of people have had their houses flooded in their absence due to burst pipes or any other reason, incurring huge repair costs and sometimes, a complete loss of valuable materials, documents, and other things.
To escape this trouble, make sure that the supply of water to the appliances that use water is shut off; pipes may break, devices could malfunction and have your house flooded.
5. Get a Trustworthy Neighbour/Friend to check occasionally
Ask a trusted neighbour or friend to come over and scrutinize your house from time to time. They could detect burst pipes, attempted break-ins and other possible problems that may arise.
The mere sight of a person walking in and out your house tells potential thieves to stay away. You may also consider hiring a home watch company to keep an eye out on your property while you are on your vacation.
You can schedule lawn care with a trustworthy company like American Grounds Service, just to ensure that someone comes there periodically. Looking for a Lawn & Landscape company that provides Landscape construction services including Landscape design, Landscape installation, Lawn installation, Patios & Walls, and more? A good services like Murrysville Landscape Construction offers all steps in this process seriously to ensure you have a great experience achieving your goal.
6. Install a Home Security System
Home Security systems (whether that’s home alarm systems uk or wherever you are based) help you keep track of activities in your house, though you can monitor by yourself with some systems, it is most advisable to get a system which is monitored professionally; the managing company alerts security operatives once a breach occurs.
This becomes even more useful now that you intend to travel, data network connection may fail in your travel destination, and you lose track of monitoring, but with a professionally managed system, you’re completely covered.
While choosing a home security system, be sure that your choice includes environmental sensors, you’ll not only be safe from burglary, but also from pipe breakage, fire and other mishaps that accompany people’s absence.
Identity Theft is also becoming a common case, thieves could sift through your trash can to find discarded credit card or checks, steal your personal information and ultimately dupe you of funds, or create troubles for you.
Signing up for identity theft protection with LifeLock remains one of the best options to avoid this, or to easily track it if it occurs.
7. Take Away All Hidden Keys
Potential thieves can easily search out these locations, find a key and access your house. You should instead drop the key (s) with a trusted friend, or as a better option, hire a locksmith to install smart locks or conduct residential lock repair services, then you’ll have nothing to do with keys; you access your doors with your mobile phone.
Securing your home and its contents are as much important as remembering all you need for travel, any careless action or inaction can turn your experience sore and make you lose thousands of dollars. Utilize the tips mentioned in this article if you want to keep a safe home and enjoy peace of mind when traveling.
