Home Security Hints

• Protect you home with a few simple home security tips. Jupiterimages/Creatas/Getty Images

  Home security is a frequent--but also frequently deferred--concern for many homeowners. From day-to-day, home feels safe, until newspapers highlight robbery of a house or apartment resembling yours. Many people choose to address home-security concerns by installing an alarm system; this is not, however, a fail-safe answer to all issues. Taking a number of actions will make choosing that alarm a more intelligent decision or produce needed security in other ways. Use role-playing, police contact, home-repair skills and family-security planning to make your home secure.

"Put Yourself in a Burglar's Shoes"

• This suggestion tops a wireless-phone company's security tips. Combined with reports from the Tucson Police Department that most of its burglars are unskilled or semi-skilled and require from 4 to 45 seconds to enter many houses, this role-playing should be done soon. With a sharp-eyed friend, tour your property to assess vulnerabilities at least twice a year; repay the favor by being the burglar/observer on his/her property. Note open windows, the garage/basement door ajar and the doggy door. Assume that a burglar will not share your bad knee and plot the route you might take from the garbage-can hutch to the bedroom window.

Call the Police -- Before You Have Problems

• Ask for security guides and tips; most departments have excellent information. Some do public programs and even inspect housing for vulnerable residents.

Make Home Repairs for Security

• Do your own work or hire home-repair services with good references. Remember that good locks and security have the capacity to deter criminals, not completely prevent them. Bear in mind that security measures work only when owners understand them and can operate them. A complex keypad, devices requiring remote control and heavyweight doors and locks may make security harder to implement, rather than easier. Factor lighting and landscaping into repairs, to remove hiding places.

Family Security Planning

• Family security planning will depend very much on the composition of your family. You will need to make decisions about how old your child needs to be to answer the telephone or the entry door. Effective incentives for teens in the "whatever--no big deal" years must mean something to your teens. Your own habits, from locking the screen door to asking your neighbor to fill your garbage can when you're out of town, may need to be sharpened.

Alarms and Security

• Do your homework on alarm companies. Unlike industrial-security companies, home-security companies do not appear to be regulated stringently; Better Business ratings and a membership group, Electronic Security Association, offer ratings of reported or member businesses. And remember that an alarm is only as reliable as its owners.