A lot of people don’t consider home security when designing their homes. While this isn’t a problem in most cases, you never know when things will change that cause you to fall victim to theft.

Believe it or not, there are over one million burglaries in the United States every year. Even if you live in a nice location, you aren’t immune to getting robbed in your home.

If you’re worried about your home’s security, there are a few excellent home security tips you can use to ease your mind. Below are nine tips that will help make securing a home easier.

1. Fortify Your Front Door

Do you think that a burglar wouldn’t be brave enough to break into your home through the front door? Think again. Believe it or not, the front door is one of the most common entry points for burglars.

If you want to increase your home’s security drastically, your front door is the first place to start. To begin, make sure it’s locked every night. You might be surprised how many burglars just walk into people’s homes because of an unlocked door.

The next place to look is your door hinges. If your hinges aren’t sturdy, it makes it easier for burglars to break them down. Once your door is secure, consider the following door security techniques:

• Install a deadbolt
• Use smart locks
• Add a video doorbell

2. Brighten Your Yard

The last thing a burglar wants to do is break into a home where they are clearly visible. That’s why many people wait until night to break into homes. The question is, do you have dark spots in your yard that make approaching your home more accessible?

You can solve this problem by lighting up your yard. Your goal with this is to light up any potential entry point to your home. These entry points include your doors, windows, garage door, and any access on the upper stories of your home.

Of course, you might not want to keep your yard bright all night. In this case, a motion spotlight will work. A spotlight will light up whenever it detects motion, so you don’t waste more electricity on lighting than needed.

3. Secure Your Garage

The garage is another popular entry point for burglars. Many people do a great job securing their homes but then completely forget about their belongings in their garages. That makes it an easy score for burglars.

The first thing to check is the locks. Many people leave the garage unlocked for convenience. However, that means anybody can open it up and take whatever is inside.

This is especially important if your garage is connected to your home. It’s an easier access point for many burglars.

You also need to make sure you close your primary garage door if you use it to store your cars. Some homeowners forget to click the button to close the door. A smart home garage door closer helps this situation by automatically closing the door for you.

4. Do Some Landscaping

Burglars don’t just pick homes at random to break into. Most of them scout homes for weak spots before they decide to break in.

They do this by finding blind spots in your yard and observing your home. A burglar will pay attention to dark areas, landscapes to hide behind, and times people aren’t home.

You can make things harder on thieves by removing their hiding places. By doing this, it’s harder for someone to scout your home. It pushes them to move on to another house that’s easier to analyze.

It also pays to make your whole yard visible from any window in your home. Doing this means you can see what’s going on in your yard at all times.

5. Buy Security Cameras

Even if you do a great job at securing your home, there’s always the chance that you’ll miss something. Even if you don’t miss anything the first time around, you never know what new tricks people will use to scope out your home.

One of the best ways for securing a house is to put security cameras outside. You can go to this website and choose the best type of security camera for your house. These cameras will record everything that happens in your yard and store them on a hard drive. This way, you’ll have a record of whoever enters your home.

Many burglars watch for cameras and avoid any house that has them. It’s not worth the risk of getting caught on camera when they can just go to a home without cameras.

6. Use a Security System

You aren’t limited to security cameras when you create a security system for your home. They do a great job at keeping a watchful eye over your yard. However, that doesn’t mean that a burglar will never take a chance and break-in.

The question is, how do you get alerted whenever someone enters your home? You’ll need a security system if you want this capability. If there are multiple people using entry codes and keys, gated community security will offer the type of solutions you need.

Your security system will have sensors at all your access points. These access points include all your doors, windows, and garages. If a sensor detects that an entry point opens, it will prepare to sound an alarm.

If you don’t have the code to disarm the alarm, it will go off and alert the authorities. This alarm is enough to scare most burglars away.

7. Get to Know Your Neighbors

Even if you do a good job removing scouting spots from your yard, that doesn’t mean it will never happen. Now that people post their lives on social media, people can browse your online profiles to get intel about your schedules. This becomes a bigger problem when you let the world know that you’re going on vacation.

Vacations are a perfect opportunity to break into homes. Burglars don’t need to worry about people coming home or waking up, so they can take their time stealing your things.

One way to combat this is to get to know your neighbors better. If you have a great relationship with the people next door and across the street, you can ask them to watch your home when you’re gone.

Your neighbors can monitor to make sure that there’s no suspicious activity around your house. If there is, they can call the police to make sure everything is safe.

8. Purchase a Gun

The best security system in the world won’t always stop someone who’s motivated from breaking into your home. The problem comes when that happens, and you and your family are home during the break-in and unprotected.

A gun can help you in these situations. In most cases, a firearm alone is enough to scare someone away from your home. They aren’t interested in getting into a conflict, so they’re more than willing to back away.

Make sure you buy a gun that you’re comfortable using. There is a lot to using a firearm, from getting the right model to being comfortable using a firearm using something like the AR 15 foregrip.

Of course, gun safety is also essential when you own a firearm. A gun safe is a great way to store your guns safely, so nobody accesses them unless you need them.

9. Use Home Automation

Many burglars don’t like breaking into homes when someone is home. Not only is it riskier, but it all reduces the amount of time they have to take what they want.

That’s why many people wait until families leave or go to sleep to break in. They wait until all the lights go out as a sign that things are safe.

Luckily, you can take this advantage away from burglars. You can use home automation to make it seem like someone is home and awake at all times.

The first step is setting up LED lights. You can program these lights to turn on and off on a schedule. Doing this means it looks like people are away and currently moving in the house.

You can also do the same thing with a TV. Set a smart power strip to turn off and on at certain times and make sure people can see through a window that your TV is on and in use. 

There Are More Home Security Tips Out There

You can’t afford to take it easy when you’re securing a house. While the chances are good that you’ll never have issues with your home, you never know when you’ll become an exception to the rule. Keep looking for more home security tips to ensure your home remains safe.

Once you take care of your home’s security needs, you can focus on improving the other parts of your house. Check out the blog for more tips that will help you create the home of your dreams.