Here’s How You Can Keep Your Home Secure While on Holiday

Are you ready for a vacation but worried about the safety of your home? Read our top 6 smart tips to keep your home protected while you’re away vacationing. 

Summer is the time of year when most try to go on vacations. It could be a planned and paid-for vacation or a last-minute trip found on a discount website. Once you’ve packed all of your vacation needs and are ready to leave, it’s critical to make sure you have a strategy in place to keep your house secure. Returning home after a nice vacation only to discover something horrible has occurred to your home would be a complete tragedy.

A house or apartment that has been left unoccupied while the owners are away is an attractive target for thieves. You don’t want to be terrified or worried about your valuables while you’re relaxing on a Caribbean beach. However, you must take some precautions to keep your house safe and secure while traveling. While you’re gone, simple preventative steps (which take only a few minutes to implement) may help keep your house secure from power surges, burst pipes, home invasions, and other hazards.

Top 6 Safety Measures to Consider Before Going On a Vacation:

1. Home Security System

If you have a security system, ensure it is activated before leaving the house. Notify your alarm provider when you’ll be gone for extended periods. It could be time to invest in a security system if you don’t already have one.

A home security system can do more than just alert you to attempted break-ins; it can also let you check in on the property while you’re away (thanks to the surveillance cameras), and with smart locks, you can even let a neighbor in to water plants or check on pets.

A home security motion detection system with door and window sensors is your first line of defense against burglary. Some systems enable you to self-monitor, but notifications on your phone won’t help you much if you’re traveling out of the country or somewhere with a bad data network connection. When a breach occurs with a monitored home security system, the alarm provider contacts the police on your behalf.

Consider placing part of your home lights on a timer (or use smart LED lights) to make it appear as though someone is home since this can dissuade opportunistic burglars who believe they have stumbled across an abandoned home. If your neighbors are kind, ask them to keep an eye out for you and come in now and then to water your plants and so on, but only if you trust them.

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2.                  Lock Before You Leave

Before you leave, lock all of the doors and windows, especially those leading to the yard or attached garage. Make sure the windows to your garage are closed so no one can see that your car is gone or see what valuables you have kept inside. If you’re going to be gone for a long time and have an automated garage door opener, turn it off. This will prevent criminals using a universal opener from gaining access. Apart from just securing the doors, it’s a good idea to make sure the frames are securely linked to the house’s construction so that no one tries to break in by destroying something. Keep a spare key out of sight, such as under the doormat or above the door frame, because an attacker may quickly find it and get entry to your house and possessions. You can even invest further in smart locks for added safety. 

During your travels, you should also turn off or lock your social media. Vacation photos are all the proof the bad guys need that your house is unoccupied and ready to be robbed. When you return, save your photographs and create an album or slideshow to share with everyone.

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3.                  Keep Your Valuables Hidden

Distribute your valuables across your home, rather than putting them all in your sock drawer, which is an apparent location that burglars can find. Leave some inexpensive jewelry or cash in a visible location so that if the worst happens, the thieves will be able to grab it and flee. Nowadays, breaking into residences to obtain car keys for costly vehicles is extremely prevalent. If your automobile will be parked in the driveway for the duration of your trip, it would be a good idea to leave the keys with a friend or neighbor.

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4.                  Switch Off The Appliances

One of the most essential things to ensure on your leaving day is that all of your appliances are turned off. Not only would leaving them switched on in an empty house be a waste of power — bad for the environment as well as your energy costs — but it might also be a safety threat.

Most of you have fretted about leaving the gas on at some time, so double-check, triple-check, and quadruple-check that the cooker is turned off before you leave, if for no other reason than peace of mind. Unplug everything that won’t be utilized while you’re gone, including your TV or stereo.

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5.                  Choose a Smart Thermostat

It’s pointless to heat or cool an empty house to a comfortable temperature while you’re gone, but you also don’t want to turn your system off completely. When you’re gone, a decent rule of thumb is to set your thermostat four degrees higher or lower than usual. This should never be below 50 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter to prevent your pipes from freezing. You may configure a programmable thermostat and set a schedule ahead of time so that you can return to a pleasant temperature.

Even better, invest in a smart thermostat that allows you to monitor and control the temperature of your house from away. Most importantly, it remembers your temperature preferences, utilizes geofencing, and is compatible with Amazon Echo and Google Home, we suggest the Nest Learning Thermostat.

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6.                  Seek The Help of a House-Sitter

If you’re still concerned about the hazards of leaving your home unattended while you relax in the sun somewhere else, try hiring a house sitter. Enlist the aid of someone you trust to come over for a couple of hours each day to keep the place secure or tell them they may stay as long as they like and help themselves to the contents of your refrigerator and beverages cupboard.

You might even rent out your home while you’re abroad if you’re feeling especially daring. House-swapping is becoming a more common holiday option for individuals who wish to keep their home comforts while on vacation.

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A Quick Checklist for You While You are Away:

Before you leave for a wonderful vacation, do check the following:

• Are all of the windows shut?

• Have you turned off all of your devices?

• If your alarm or camera uses an app.

• If your router is turned on.

• Close interior doors to prevent an invader from looking straight      through your property through one window.

• Empty your trash cans (you don’t want to return to a stinky house)!

• Turn on your alarm and lock all of your doors.

Now that you’ve understood all the home safety measures, relax and have a memorable holiday!

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