Protect your home.

Take steps to protect your home

This is the first in a three-part series of posts on how to protect your home while you’re out of town. Most snowbirds will already be familiar with these security suggestions, but they apply equally if you’ll be out of town for more than a week.

The Basics

• Notify police and neighbors about when you are leaving and how long you will be gone.
• Suspend all deliveries: mail, newspapers, etc. Avoid ordering mail order merchandise that might arrive while you’re away.
• Put valuables in a bank safe deposit box.
• Leave a key with a neighbor in case of emergency.

Buy an automatic timer or two

• Set up automatic timers to turn your lights on and off and to play the radio at different times of the day.
• Use a programmable timer. Smart criminals may case a neighborhood days or weeks ahead of attempting a burglary. Programmable timers allow you to set up lights so that they don’t always turn on and off at the same time of day, making it much more difficult for criminals casing a neighborhood to tell that you’re away.
• Customers at Amazon.com gave good reviews to the two timer products shown to the right. Always check reviews on these products, as some of them are poorly designed and difficult to use.

Arrange for the care of your house, lawn and garden.

• Well-kept grounds give the impression that somebody’s home.
• Ask a friend or neighbor to make periodic checks of your house, or consider employing a house-sitting service.
• Have someone remove flyers or advertising circulars from your steps, entryway, and doorknob. When ad material piles up, it’s a dead giveaway that no one is home.

PHOTO CREDIT: HOUSE IN FLORIDA BY C. SPENCER VAN GULICK VIA STOCK.XCHNG.