Be sure your home always looks occupied. Put timers on the TV, lights and radios. This will give your home the appearance of someone being there. This is a simple way to improve your home’s safety and make it less attractive to criminals.

Install a peep hole so that you can see who is at your door before you open it. Criminals will knock at a door so that they can push past you when you open it. You should never open a door without knowing the person that is on the other side of it.

Make sure that your home security system has a backup power source. Many burglars cut wires inside home security systems before entering a home. If you have a backup source, the alarm will continue to work as it should. It may be more expensive to install this type of system, but it will be worth it.

Make sure that you have smoke alarms in every sector of your home to stay safe at all times. This is important as you will need some sort of notification when you are sleeping and unable to notice that a fire is occurring. If you have a one level house, one smoke alarm will suffice.

Walls can be a great hiding spot. You can hide small valuables inside the walls. Repurpose phone jacks and electrical outlets as tiny wall safes. If you haven’t got any plates that are unused, simply install a false switch plate.

Pretend you are a burglar. By taking on 45678 of an intruder, you can check for vulnerable areas around your property. Really think hard about ways you would get into your home if you were a criminal. Check the garage as well as sheds or other places you keep valuable possessions.

Make sure to choose an alarm company that offers monitoring. An alarm that just buzzes if an intruder tries to enter is statistically shown to be mostly ineffective. When you add the additional monitoring however, you have a direct link to someone who can call the police and get you help. There may be an extra charge for a monitored alarm, but it is well worth the cost.

Choose an alarm which monitors other areas outside your doors. Windows are a way for thieves to enter your home as well. The alarm and monitoring system should be set for all windows and doors. Doing this will help ensure the safety of your home and loved ones.

Keep your home security system’s wires under cover. Intruders can disable a system if they see the wires. Make it hard for a burglar to avoid your detection. Keep yourself safe.

If you need to hide a spare key, do so in a safe manner. Putting it under your doormat, in a plant hanging by the door, in your garage hung on the wall or in the mailbox are all poor choices. Instead, bury it somewhere and mark it in a non-descript way.

Don’t rely on just a spring lock. Spring locks can easily be broken, sometimes just using a credit card. 45678 are just too vulnerable. Have a deadbolt lock installed instead, which is much harder for an intruder to get around. Make sure there is no way a burglar can saw the deadbolt, though.

If you know you are going to be away from home for a while, turn the volume on your phone down as low as possible. If a burglar is staking out your house, a ringing phone could be just the confirmation he or she needs to know you are not there.

Knowing what type of home security safeguards you ought to be taking can be a fairly significant challenge. The key is to arm yourself with sound advice and guidance before moving ahead with any decisions. Hopefully the preceding article has given you what you need to take your home’s safety into your own hands and start taking action today.