Photo: Mortgage
Following on from last week's Travel Tip Tuesday, here is the second part of Preparing your home before you head off on holidays.
4) Secure the home and garden
* lock the gate to the backyard
* ensure all doors and windows have locks on
* make sure things that will help burglars to break in such as ladders, gardening tools etc are locked away
* ensure all sensor lights are turned on around the outside of your house
* ask a trusted friend or family member to regularly check in and around the house
* an obvious one, make sure the home alarm is switched on and that all the "alarm stickers" are visible on outside doors and windows. If the alarm is to go off, make sure your neighbour knows what to do or who to call. If you do not have an alarm system, consider getting a "dummy alarm" which looks like the real thing. Some of these alarms even come with "dummy alarm stickers"
* if you keep a set of house keys outside, make sure you collect them before going on holidays
* take photos of your valuables and keep them somewhere safe
* try and hide valuables in rooms burglars rarely go to if they are in a rush e.g. kitchen, laundry, bathroom, kids bedrooms etc.
5) If you are having work done to the house and garden, do not tell the "workers/contractors" that you will be on holidays.
* Just give an excuse as to why the work has to stop, either that or avoid going on holidays whilst workers are coming in and out of your house. This might sound obvious, but we know people who have been burgled twice in the space of 6 months whilst their pool was being built. Some might say coincidence but we doubt it!
I hope you find these tips handy. I will be uploading a "Preparing your home" checklist on my ickle Kids website soon to enable you to tick things off in the lead up to your holidays.
3 comments:
Some great advice there!
good advice
we went on holidays for a while and I took photos etc of each room and items of interest. popped them in a fire safe safe(smallish) in case of a fire etc thinking I had covered all bases. the safe was in my wradrobe, not bolted down or in a wall etc.... but fairly heavy. (you know the ones you get from office works)
yep, we got back, items stolen and the whole safe gone!!
was a nightmare. so plan for all possible scenarios I say!
You poor thing Elizabeth! Its awful being broken into isn't it? We were out for only 3 hours and gone done over (now we have an alarm!). Interestingly enough, rooms that weren't touched was the kitchen, bathrooms and kid's rooms. Might be an idea to hide things in these rooms than the wardrobe. Just a thought!
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