This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

Protecting Your Home

We live in a relatively safe area. So we shouldn’t need to worry about anything happening to us in our homes…right?

Even if things appear to be perfectly safe, anything can happen. And we should be conscious of this. I am not suggesting we become paranoid. But certainly a little effort can pay off when it comes to making sure our homes are relatively safe.

A burglar alarm can help. So can having a neighborhood watch program. But let’s not play down the importance of common sense.

Find out what's happening in Palo Altowith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Here is an easy one: Lock your door behind you when you come home.  Make sure everyone in the family gets in this habit. And if you have multiple locks, make sure the same one is locked each time if you are only locking one during the day (locking 2+ at night, of course). This will speed up entry for family members when they come home. It may not be extremely unsafe right outside your from door. But there is definitely a degree of peace-of-mind that comes with knowing that your kids/spouse can make it into the house as quickly as possible, particularly in the case of an emergency.

Close and lock windows, particularly at night and/or when you are not at home (keep this one in mind when it gets hot out in a few months). Most people do not realize that if your window is open, a thief may not be considered guilty of burglary. They may have been Trespassing. But “breaking & entering” is not committed if they gained entry through an open door or window. (reference: http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/burglary ).

Find out what's happening in Palo Altowith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Set timers for your lights and put a stop on mail when you are leaving for a vacation. Also let your trusted neighbors know when you are going to be gone, so they can watch for package deliveries, etc.

Don’t leave children alone any longer than necessary and explain to them and practice with them what they should do if you must leave them alone. For example, should they completely ignore any knocks at the front door?  Should they answer the phone? Is there a particular neighbor they should run to in an emergency? If a thief comes to the door and nobody answers, he may head around to the back to try to break in. So remaining completely quiet may not be the best answer…

Although I have, above, focused primarily on keeping bad guys out, there are other safety considerations in terms of our ability to get out of the home quickly. Let’s not forget that we live in an earthquake zone. Since we haven’t had a big earthquake in this area for a while, I think most people have become a bit complacent. Is your exit clear, or do you have things piled up near the doors? Do you have flashlights handy? Returning to the subject of bad guys getting into your home, if someone were to break in while you were at home, and you wanted to get out in a hurry, would you be able to?  Think about your exit strategies. Much of what would happen in the case of a fire or earthquake would also apply in a home invasion scenario.

How safe is your home?  




We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?