Keeping Your Family Safe (Part 2)
1. Strategically placed lighting outside your house can be a good deterrent. Burglars prefer to operate in dark surroundings. Nowadays you can get very energy-efficient LED bulbs that have built-in sensors that switch on when darkness falls. This means the lights can be left on 24 hours a day thus saving you the hassle of having to switch them on every night.
2. Get a dog. They are great companions and even a small alert dog can warn you when strangers are near. I think it is best to keep the dog indoors, but not under the duvet where they may end up sleeping even more soundly than you!
3. Keep the bushes and trees around your house well trimmed so as to not provide hiding places for intruders.
4. Fit a good security system and have it connected to a company that provides armed response in the case of an emergency.
5. Fit good physical security barriers such as safety gates and burglar proofing that will keep intruders at bay. It’s not true that burglars will be put off at the mere sight of some security barriers, they know very well which systems are easy to breach so don’t waste your money on products that offer little or no deterrence. Security barriers must do what the name says, keep you SECURE!