Five Tips To Keep Your Home Safe While Out On Vacation

Before going out of town for some much-need­ed rest and relax­ation, there are cer­tain pre­cau­tions you need to take. We’ve put togeth­er five tips to keep your home safe while you’re on vaca­tion.

1. Let your alarm com­pa­ny know:A few days before you leave, let your alarm com­pa­ny know that you’ll be out of town. Their job is to keep your home safe and if you’re leav­ing for an extend­ed peri­od of time, your alarm com­pa­ny will be on the look­out for any­thing sus­pi­cious.
2. Keep your valu­ables hidden:Valuables include every­thing from jew­ellery to com­put­ers. Make sure that you nev­er leave any valu­ables out in plain site. Every­thing from your bar­beque to your tele­vi­sion needs to be out of view from the out­side of the house. When a bur­glar is cas­ing your prop­er­ty try­ing to fig­ure out what you have that they can steal, they look for stuff that’s out in the open. Any­thing that is vis­i­ble from a win­dow or through a slant in your blinds needs to be moved while you’re on vaca­tion.
3. Don’t change your voice­mail message:Instead of say­ing, “Hi, you’ve reached The Patterson’s. We’re out of town until Tues­day the 14th.”, don’t change your greet­ing at all. Crim­i­nals usu­al­ly call the home they want to rob first to see if anyone’s home. When you leave an out­go­ing mes­sage that says you’re not going to be home for a long peri­od of time, you’re basi­cal­ly invit­ing them to steal from you. The same goes for your mobile phone and social media accounts. The more infor­ma­tion you give out, the eas­i­er it is for bur­glars to know that your home is unoc­cu­pied.
4. Time your lights:Leaving a sin­gle light on while you’re on vaca­tion isn’t enough. You need to leave alter­nat­ing lights on so it appears that nor­mal house­hold activ­i­ties are going on inside your home. Most alarm sys­tems allow you to put your lights on a timer so that it looks like someone’s home at dif­fer­ent times through­out the day and night.
5. Get a friend to help out:Ask a friend or rel­a­tive that you trust to check on your prop­er­ty while you’re away. They can remove any mail that’s left on the porch and make sure that everything’s in order inside. If you trust your neigh­bours, ask them if they wouldn’t mind park­ing in your dri­ve­way a few times while you’re gone so it looks like someone’s home at your place.

If you do not have a home secu­ri­ty sys­tem in place, it may be time to invest in a good one. Con­tact us today to secure your home so you can enjoy your vaca­tion, free of wor­ry.