I was unloading groceries yesterday when one of my neighbors, walking a pair of dogs, approached me.
“Did you see the police cars yesterday?”
“Police cars?”
“Yea, here on our street.”
“Noooo. What happened?”
Two men in a hatchback vehicle backed into the driveway of a house on our street around midday. One approached the front door while the other man went around the side of the house and into the back yard. While the at-home mom who lives there was approaching the front door the man at the back of the house was attempting to open the back door. She ran to the back door, slammed it, drove the lock home, and then called the police. The men were apparently scared off by her slamming the door and fled the scene.
Did I mention that this was on my side of the street and only three houses down? It was.
I’m a SAHM, like our neighbor three down, and this got me thinking. What if it had been me? Would we, my daughter and I, have been okay?
What can I do to help keep us safe if they come to our house next time?
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All doors into your house should be solid wood or metal clad. This includes doors from the garage to the house. Windowless is best, or, failing that, a door with a small window far enough from the lock that an intruder could not break the window and reach the lock on the inside of the door.
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Use a deadbolt, preferably one that requires a key on both sides, on all outside access doors into your home.
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Check your lock’s strike plate. It should be thick and secure looking with four three-inch screws securing it to the door frame.
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If you hang a key to the lock near the door for convenience hang it on the hinge side.
Image Courtesy of Darren Hester via OPENPHOTO -
Install a chain or bar but don’t rely on it to protect you. I have personally pulled no less than three of these off our front door by forgetting to unlatch them before pulling the door open—it doesn’t take that much force to render a door chain useless.
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If you frequently leave a door open for ventilation, consider buying a heavy duty metal screen door with a deadbolt. Make sure the deadbolt is on the frame at least twelve to eighteen inches from any screen so that a potential invader cannot cut the screen to reach in and unlock the door. Again, I’d use a double-key deadbolt.
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If you have a sliding glass door, install some type of secondary locking mechanism—a bar in the door’s track is the most common.
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This may seem obvious but a surprising number of people don’t do it—LOCK your doors and keep them locked. All of them. All the time. First floor windows, too.
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Don’t leave your garage door open when you are in the house. Most people neglect to lock the door from the house to the garage and an open garage may be considered, by some, to be an open invitation.
Your home should be your castle—keep the gates secure & see ya next blog!