How to secure your property whilst you are away on holiday

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by Lisa George

You’ve packed your ski gear and are looking forward to those glorious views and are ready to hit the slopes, ready to enjoy a week or so away from it all.

Meanwhile have you thought about how secure your home will be while you are away? Many burglars are happy to wait for the right opportunity when a house will be empty for a longer period before they strike so thinking about security now is a good idea.

Here are some steps on how to secure your property whilst you are away on holiday:

Lock All Windows and Doors

Make sure that you lock all available doors including interior doors like the one to the garage. Locking windows is the best way to ensure that they can’t be easily forced and should be high on your priority list.

Once you have locked everywhere, hide the keys and make sure that they are out of reach of the letterbox. Some sneaky burglars use hooks to reach keys to open the front door so don’t give them a chance – hide the keys in a drawer or at least out of sight.

Neighbourhood Watch

If you want your house to be safe whilst you are away, chat to your neighbours regularly and get to know them. This is the best way to ensure that while you are away there will be someone close by who will notice if something is off. A Neighbourhood Watch is a more formal version of this but is just as good.

Install Basic Security Measures

If you haven’t already got a burglar alarm, you should install one before you go. An alarm is one of the best ways to put a burglar off and should also frighten them away if they do break in. Though many alarms are ignored and are often treated as a nuisance, if you let your neighbours know you are away, they will know that this is a real burglary and not an accident.

Garden motion sensor lights are also a good idea as they prevent a burglar from sneaking up to your house and going in undetected. Putting lights at the front and the back of your house is the best way to illuminate the whole area.

Look Like You’re In

A burglar who has staked out a property will want to know for certain that no-one is in before he (or she) enters. Putting lights on a timer switch and even putting a radio on too could be just enough to sow a seed of doubt and put them off. Whatever you do, don’t pull the curtains halfway over the window and leave them like this as nothing says ‘I’m on holiday’ more than this!

Hide and Secure Valuables

Though prevention is best, if someone does get into your house, you don’t want to make the burglary easy for them. Make sure that you hide your valuables away and secure things like bikes to an unmovable object so it can’t be easily stolen.

If you have lockable drawers, these will do nicely for smaller things like jewellery and any cash you have in the house. Electrical’s should also be tidied away and kept out of sight.

For more tips and advice for keeping your property safe and secure read our informative library of blogs and articles or if you are ready to take action, contact us for a free security appraisal. Our clients include High Net Worth and High Profile Celebrities and we just celebrated our 25 year anniversary.