If you have a family, and you also own a home, then you will probably want to take whatever action you can to protect both your property and the people you love. You can’t always do that, but you can definitely take certain actions that will make you sleep easier at night. Some of them don’t cost all that much money, either.
You can’t make your teens drive safer, though you can always contact a car wreck lawyer if they cause an accident. While you’re all at home, though, you can all feel more secure if you take the following actions.
Get Cameras for Outside the House
If you live in a neighborhood that gets regular police patrols, that will probably make you feel somewhat better. However, you don’t ever know if the cops will have officers nearby when you need them.
That’s why it makes sense to install cameras outside your home. You will probably want to position them so that you have one pointed at every door that leads inside. That includes the front door, back door, and also a side door, if your house has one.
You can look for outdoor cameras on Amazon, and they also sell them at some brick-and-mortar store locations. You’ll probably want to get the battery-operated ones.
You might buy them individually, but you can usually save a little money if you buy a pack of them instead. You can sometimes find them as three, four, or six packs.
You put batteries in them to active them, and then you can drill holes in the siding and set each one in the magnetic bracket designed to hold it. If your house doesn’t have siding, and it has something like brick or stone instead, installing the cameras becomes a little more challenging, but you can still usually do it. You will just need to use a masonry drill to affix each camera to the bracket.
You can download the application that goes with the camera. This way, you can record all movement around your house, whether it’s a potential intruder, a neighbor who stopped by for a visit, or an inquisitive squirrel that got too close to the camera.
Get a Doorbell Camera
You may also want to get a doorbell camera. This one will activate whenever someone rings the bell. You can get the app for your smartphone that goes with this camera as well.
This way, if someone stops by, your phone will let you know if you didn’t happen to hear the doorbell. You can look at your smartphone and see who’s at the door.
If you don’t want to go down and answer it, you can usually communicate through the app and a speaker right next to the doorbell. If it’s a delivery person, you might ask them to leave the package at the front door until you get a spare moment to go down and get it.
Purchase a Firearm
You might also want to consider purchasing a gun. That’s not for everyone, but if you live in a part of the city that has a high crime rate or seems to be heading in a more dangerous direction, then you should probably at least think about it.
If you buy a gun, then you will need to get lessons on how to use it if you don’t know much about gun safety or handling yet. You will also want to get a safe in which to put it.
You should inform your children never to touch it. You can keep the safe locked and keep the key in a secure place where they can’t get to it if you have some younger kids in the house.
Get Motion-Activated Lights
You can install motion-activated lights that turn on when someone approaches the house. Those can come in handy, especially after it gets dark.
If you are not at home, then the lights coming on might deter a potential burglar from trying to break in. If you go on vacation, then this may scare any intruders away.
Install a Security System
You might also want to consider installing a security system. Such systems usually cost a good deal of money, though, so you’ll need to think about whether you want to spend that much.
If you get one of these systems, you will probably have the initial expenditure when the company installs it. You will also usually have to pay an additional monthly fee to have the company continue monitoring your home.
Maybe you don’t want to pay that monthly fee if you are not making a lot of money at the moment. There’s no denying, though, that having a company monitoring the house that can send armed guards anytime someone trips the alarm should make you and the rest of the family feel a lot safer.
Fence in the Yard
You might choose to fence in the yard if you didn’t do that yet. You can always install something around the front and back yards like a chain-link fence, but that will still allow people to look into your yard to see what’s in happening there.
A material like pressure-treated wooden boards will cost more, but it also forms a solid barrier between your front yard and the street. In the back, it provides your family members with some privacy.
If you buy wooden boards and build a stockade-style fence out of them, it’s aesthetically appealing as well as secure. It will probably cost multiple thousands of dollars, but it doesn’t just keep your family safe. It also increases the home’s value whenever you decide to move on from that house.
If you do all of these things, then you can probably feel that you’ve done all you can to protect your family and your physical possessions. If you don’t feel that you need all of these measures, then you might look into some and not others.