Home security part 2

In part 1 we discussed basic ways to keep would be thieves away, from access points to your house. I will leave the topic of locks, bars, etc. to your imagination, unless someone emails me for advice. But let’s suppose for a minute, you finally get the chance to use the free coupon for that all-inclusive in Tulum. You board your dogs at a kennel, lock your house up tight and head off, for that week away.

Fast forward a day or 2, when a thief seeing you gone and no dogs about, tries his luck and finally gets in. NOW WHAT?

First of all, there are a couple of things you should do, right after reading this. Go and etch, burn or however, permanently  mark all your electronics, including fridge, TV, stove, A/C units, the works. Use your name and some identifying number (SIN, DL,) . What ever will identify the property as yours, with no doubt and make it visible and I mean easily visible. Now take pictures of all your valuables and electronics, good close-ups of jewellery and specialty items including serial numbers if possible. Burn that information to a flash drive and give it to a close friend. You would be surprised how many people forget what they own and when it is time to make a report things get forgotten of value. But if you have pictures it makes things easier. Remember a picture is worth a thousand words.

If you have anything of value in your bedroom drawers, hidden under your socks or undies, MOVE THEM, leave the costume stuff there and they might think they struck it rich. The first thing any thief will do, is pull out the drawers and dump them on your bed. All the hidden goodies will come tumbling out. Right about now most of you are thinking hmmm, that’s where my stuff is and in fact that is where most people keep their valuables, believe it or not. So lets talk about some basics on keeping your valuables safe.

Most thieves know where people hide stuff, it is not rocket science. They probably remember where their parents hid stuff or they did as a kid. The trick here, is to hide it, where they won’t have time to look. Do you have a safe? I love house safes, they by far are the best place NOT to hide anything, other than maybe papers that have no real value or dirty socks. To most thieves a safe is a flashing sign saying, hidden wealth here! I can think of nothing better than a thief taking hours sweating to break open or break it out and take the safe, only to finally open it and just find your bills from Home Depot or dirty socks. Remember the longer they are in your house or in possession of your WELL MARKED stuff, the better the chance of being caught. So I would install a safe that is encased in rebar and concrete and hide it, but not that well. They will be so busy with it, they may not have time to do a real thorough search of your house. The other place not to hide stuff, is in the fridge. Lots of thieves get hungry or thirsty and will scoop your steaks out of the freezer, for a nice BBQ later. It is a big bonus for them, if they see that Tupperware container with your jewellery, at the same time.

So where can you hide stuff? Well for starters if you do not want it to be found and you don’t need access that often, bury it outside in your back yard (yes I am serious) or put it in a bank vault.  But most likely you will need access, to money or other valuables in your house. Do not hide them all in one spot just incase the thief is lucky. Break your valuables into smaller groups and put them in zip locks, now look for places that no one looks or get them made, like this one.

Houses have lots of electrical outlets and a couple of false ones behind a couch or under a counter are pretty hard to spot. Not many thieves are going to pop every outlet cover just on the chance one might be fake. Go into your pantry and look for likely spots to put things, I just walked into mine and there was a nice Ortho ant dust can about the size of a pringles can. Find an empty one and wash it out, put your diamond necklace in a zip lock and put it in, cut a thick piece of plastic that fits in the hole tightly, put in some baking soda or fine sand on top and replace the lid. Now just put it back on the shelf. Want to hide a larger amount of really valuable stuff? Double bag it in zip locks suck the air out and put it in a half empty can of water based paint. Lots of people have cans of paint around the house. When you need your stuff, take it out and rinse the bag under water, viola clean zip lock. You could even hollow out the bottom side of a can of spam and just place it on the shelf with the rest of them.

You get the idea, be creative and keep things in small amounts, even if they get lucky, they won’t get everything and hopefully they will be caught in possession of something with your ID information on it, providing they could break in, in the first place.