You’ve waited an entire year for this—your family’s summer vacation. Whether you decide to fly to an exotic location for a few weeks or are just planning to spend a few days camping in the great outdoors, nothing can ruin a wonderful family outing than coming home and discovering you’ve been robbed.
It is a grim reality that I often overlook. I get so caught up with the planning, packing, reconfirming reservations, and ironing out other logistics that the thought of an unwelcome houseguest invading our space often gets put on the back burner. Now it’s all I can think of. Yesterday, police sent out a warning to residents in my neighborhood regarding home invasions… this after a local family came home to find teens had used their home as “party central” while they were on vacation.
Not only had the family’s home been broken into, the teen suspects (who range in age from 12 to 15) left beer cans, drugs, and food in the living room. According to police, the people who broke in also used the family’s credit cards to rent pornographic movies. They also stole toys, a gun, family heirlooms, and get this… they even took the family’s pregnant pet rabbit!
To help protect your home from being burglarized consider taking the following pre-vacation steps:
1. Stop mail and suspend newspaper delivery OR
2. Ask a friend or neighbor to house sit. If you know your next door neighbor well consider asking him to drop by regularly and check up on things. Have him/her pick up any “weeklies” or any other junk mail or flyers that accumulate on your property. Also, if you are getting a friend or relative to house sit notify and leave a description of the person with your neighbors– that way a burglar can’t claim to be house sitting and house sitters don’t get arrested.
3. Invest in several timers. Connect them to a few lights and the TV or radio. Have them set so that a few lights are timed to go off during the day and night.
4. If you have a second car, park it in the driveway.
5. If you’ll be gone longer than 10 days, ask a neighbor to put some of their trash in your garbage cans.
6. If your neighbor’s home is in relatively close proximity to your own and you have a baby monitor, leave the base unit turned on at your home and take the other monitor to your neighbor’s home. If the security or smoke alarms go off, or if your neighbors hear something suspicious, they can call the police.