3 Tips to Keep your Home Secure Over the Holidays

3 Tips to Keep your Home Secure Over the Holidays

  • By Sydny Shepard
  • Dec 23, 2015

While the holidays are mostly filled with joy, giving and celebration, sometimes things don’t always turn out like we planned. Crimes are two times more likely during the Christmas season, so if you decide to travel, leaving your home empty for a few days, here are some tips to ensure your home is safe during the jolliest time of year.

Light it up

Whether you have decided to travel for the holidays or not, make sure you keep your porch light on. The light will thwart off burglars because there is more of a chance that they may be seen if they choose to target your home. Use exterior lights to illuminate places like your back door and front and back yards so that there aren’t any dark shadows that make it hard for a video surveillance camera to pick up suspicious activity around the perimeter of your home. It is easier to see a burglary in the act if it isn’t as black as night.

A way to trick people into thinking you are home is to implement a lighting timer. You can choose different times to turn on and off lights around your home. You can choose to keep the living room light on all night while flickering between upstairs bedrooms and the kitchen area. Christmas criminals won’t choose to target your home if they believe you are inside.

Protect Your Empty House

Be sure to lock up your house. Double check all windows, doors and fences. If you have an alarm system, make sure it is set before leaving for your journey. Call your alarm company and let them know you will be out of town, so if you alarm is tripped they know that it is a serious emergency and not just a false alarm.

Let your neighbors know that you are not going to be home, so that if they sense any suspicious activity or see any other lights on in your house, they can call the police and then notify you that someone may be lurking in your home.

If your family goes out of town every holiday season, perhaps you should think about investing in a video surveillance system that allows you to monitor the footage in real time from a mobile device. These sorts of systems usually have a notification system that will ping you and the local police department with any and all suspicious activity.

Have Common Sense on Social Media

In this digital age, we like to share everything we are doing in real time, but around the holidays it might be best to wait to share every picture you take if you aren’t at home. Burglars have become especially social media savvy, creeping through social media posts to see which tenants have been posting from other locations for a certain period of time.

If you’d like to tweet out a, “Happy Holidays!” from your phone, just make sure that all your location settings are off. Don’t add your location to your Instagrams and only post pictures when it is not easy to identify where you are.

When you get home from your travels, you can post all of your stories and photos at one time from a location that will not tip off any criminals.

By using these three tips, you will be sure to enjoy your holidays without the added stress of a break-in at your empty home. Whatever you do, don’t forget to have some fun with your family and relax!

About the Author

Sydny Shepard is the Executive Editor of Campus Security & Life Safety.

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