How to Keep Your Home Safe During the Holidays

The holiday season is a time of great festivities, such as parties, family get-togethers and vacations. The holidays are also a time when thieves are hard at work looking for vulnerable targets to prey upon. This time of year, homeowners have a wealth of valuable merchandise they have purchased for gifts, and burglars are looking for poorly secured homes to victimize.

There are some things you can do to make your home safer during the holidays, and ensure you do not become an easy target for burglars:

Keep your Gifts from Being Visible from the Street: Many homeowners like to put on a nice holiday light display, and often times a part of this display is a big Christmas tree easily visible through the front window. This is a big mistake, because it allows thieves to get a good look at the presents you have around the tree. If your tree is visible from the front window, keep the blinds or curtains closed so they cannot be seen from the outside.

Be Discreet when Disposing of Gift Boxes: Another way burglars figure out what kind of merchandise you have is by going through the empty boxes when you put them out for recycling. If you have expensive merchandise such as televisions or computers, make sure to break the boxes down as much as possible and turn them inside out so they are not easily visible. You may also want to wait until recycling day to bring the boxes out to the curb, rather than let them sit out there for several days.

Keep Adequate Lighting inside and outside your Home: Burglars prefer to strike when your house is dark. For this reason, it is important to have a lighting strategy. For starters, you should have motion detector lights outside that are triggered when someone approaches the house. In addition, you will want to keep lights on at various times of the evening, and putting your lights on an automatic timer is one of the best ways to accomplish this. Also, if you are going to be out of town, have someone you trust come over and turn the lights on/off at random times to keep burglars guessing.

Do Not Post your Gifts or Vacation Plans Online: In this day and age of social media, it has become quite popular to post pictures of nice gifts you received or exotic vacations you are on. Social media is also a popular place for thieves to gain critical information about what is inside your home and when it is vacated. Be very careful what you post on sites like Facebook and Twitter, you never know who will ultimately have access to that information.

Install a Quality Home Security System: Home security systems are far more sophisticated than they were even a few years ago. For example, you can now install a wireless system with video monitoring that you can control from anywhere in the world with your smartphone. A quality home security system makes good sense, and it may also save you money on your homeowner insurance. Speak to a local insurance agent, preferably one that is independent with access to several of the leading carriers in your state, and find out what kinds of discounts insurance companies in your area are offering when you install a security system.