Keeping your home safe is more important than it’s ever been. Some estimates suggest that more than one and a half million home burglaries occur every year.
And those burglaries can happen in vacation homes, apartments, suburbs, cities, and the country.
The key factor behind many burglaries is that someone has privy information that makes your home or apartment a strategic target. Of course, home security goes far beyond protecting valuables. Your family is the greatest value and cannot be purchased at any price.
Although hiring an armed militia may be necessary in war-torn nations when they collapse, the United States is much safer but on the brink of Martial Law at all times. Let’s look at some of the key security tools used by homeowners below.
Laser Motion Detectors
Whether you decide to have them installed in your home or on secure areas outside of your home, a motion detector offers high security. You may have seen the movies where thieves have to pass through elaborate laser webs to enter secure areas. In real life, no one needs 100 lasers to secure their home.
Adding any kind of motion detector can help you to sleep better at night. You will know if someone entered your home without your permission or even encroached on it by stepping onto a back porch or other private property.
The motion detector doesn’t have to ring off an audible alarm but can simply send notice to a SmartPhone or security control center. The sensors can be placed around the perimeter to create various levels of security to reduce the risk of false alarms.
Deadbolts
Installing a deadbolt in your home ensures that no one can force the door open. It is very hard to gain access to many buildings without opening the door. The windows are often too small for large thieves to fit through.
A deadbolt can’t be pried open with a crowbar, knife, or credit card. Locks that are built into the doorknob mechanism have to retain a tapered edge that allows them to slide and lock into place with normal use. A deadbolt has to be turned manually when the door is closed and cannot be shimmied open from the tapered side.
Thieves can practice picking these knob-style locks on their own homes. They can create different tools that attack the doorknob lock mechanism from the inside and slide the doors right open. Some of the doorknobs have a mechanism to help protect against this type of entry but can still be pried out with a crowbar or a sledgehammer.
You can also purchase various styles of electronic keyless deadbolts. These can typically be opened with a thumbprint scan or a numerical password. For your convenience, we have provided an updated list of 10 electronic deadbolt door locks.
A deadbolt lock is ineffective if the doorframe is weak and does not sustain the force of pressure. Although it is a deterrent, a deadbolt lock can still be opened using a technique called lock bumping. Lock bumping uses a special key that is bumped to universally defeat any corresponding pin and tumbler style lock.
Handguns
If you are at home and someone is violently breaking and entering, you may need a handgun. A handgun is the last defense that someone has when they have called 911 and exhausted all their options. Although the chances are slim that organized crime will target random homes, mistakes do happen.
Most thieves like to enter a stranger’s home with weaponry in the event that there is a standoff. Homeowners who are being held at gunpoint are only a hair-trigger away from being killed. It only takes some paranoid thinking for the burglars to decide whether they want to kill any witnesses or not.
Gun owners have to be careful about stand-your-ground laws in their states, however. There are certain guidelines that authorize the use of lethal force. No one wants to see innocent bystanders killed as may have been the case in the Oscar Pistorius shooting.
For your convenience, we have provided a list of 10 hard and soft handgun cases. Keeping your handguns secure from children but handy in the bedroom when you may need them for a night intruder takes a lot of careful consideration.
Security Cameras
Thieves don’t like the complications that security cameras create. If that wasn’t the case, they’d be breaking into more businesses than homes. Security cameras create identifying evidence but can be defeated if the burglar does not see signs of other home security devices.
The wires of security cameras can be easily cut. The lenses can be taped over. Thieves can wear black ski masks or other masks to cover their faces.
We’ve seen it all in the movies. We know that every system has its weaknesses if the thieves have a strong enough incentive to break into a home. But if a thief has the option of breaking into a home without a security camera as opposed to one with cameras, they will always choose the former.
Don’t make your home the lowest hanging fruit on the block. Adding various levels of security will ensure that your family and property are safe at all times.
Securing Internal Rooms
If you want to make the job of a thief a total nightmare, simply install automated locks for every room in your house. This will force them to work overtime to get into the goodies. Although they may feel more brazen once they are inside your home, metal doors and SmartLocks can take a serious toll on the morale of any thief.
They will either give up or think that the house is holding some incredibly valuable items. When you add safes to each room to protect any valuables, your home will be like breaking into Fort Knox. Any thief with a grain of intelligence will run for the hills.
Conclusion
Although home security options are simple, smart homeowners create layers of security as failsafes when one level of deterrents is insufficient. The more barriers that you erect, the less likely that any thief will waste their time chasing after the prospect of gold, guns, electronics, liquor, or jewelry