Unwanted guests! home invasions
As I scroll through North American newspapers, I am dismayed to read about the rise in brutal home invasions.
What is a home invasion?
Breaking and entering occurs when a person or persons enter an occupied dwelling with the intent to commit a crime while threatening the residents. This crime has a tendency to be particularly brutal where residents are often tied up and sometimes beaten or worse.
Home invasions are scary and threaten our belief that we are the safest in our homes.
These bad boys and girls look for opportunities to get into your home with the least effort, the least risk, and the most reward. Your job is to make your home less attractive to criminals!
You do this by making it very difficult to gain access, restricting their ability to see your potential gain, and making your home look like they will be seen or caught if they break into your home.
Top 10 tips to keep you and your family safe:
1) Keep your doors locked at all times!
2) Secure your windows and screens.
3) Trim or remove trees and shrubs that hide your windows and doors from view or give bad guys a place to hide.
4) Leave lights on at night or install motion sensors that turn them on when there is movement.
5) Make sure your lights are out of reach and protected so they can’t be broken or removed.
6 ) Get an alarm system – learn how to use it – activate it even when you are home – put a keypad in your master bedroom and learn to use the panic/emergency buttons that all alarm systems come with.
7) Take a look at the Smart Home technology available to you. This technology improves your traditional alarm system. My favorite is http://www.nexgencontrols.com
8) Change your routine! Don’t be predictable.
9) Appear to have a lot of people living in the house or there when a stranger knocks on the door, better yet get a dog or make it look like you have a dog.
10) Above all, TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS!
God forbid you become the victim of a home invasion.
What should you do?
You need to be cool, calm, cooperative and observant to keep yourself safe and help the police catch the bad guys.
1) Quiet and stay calm: Now is the time to stay calm.
2 ) Cooperate but don’t go anywhere with them – Remember that no material possession is worth your life!
3) Observe: Your job now is to remember everything you can about the bad guys: scars, tattoos, eyes, nose, mouth, smells: tobacco, alcohol, aftershave or cologne, if they have an accent, etc.
And my final piece of advice for today is: get to know your neighbors and your neighborhood. Protect each other and take care of each other by knowing what is “normal” for your neighborhood.
Take care!
Sherry June 1, 2009