Safety in the Home

Safety in the Home
By Sheriff Jim Mele

Prepare your yards and homes for the upcoming winter. We have many homes in the Twain Harte area that are vacation homes, and we know that the criminal element will go to the place of least resistance, meaning that they don’t like to work at stealing.

So how can we make our homes safer?

1) Lighting: Motion detection is great. I know that we have a lot of animals who activate these lights, but they do work. Also try to use strong lighting. That is the best deterrent.

2) Locks: Look at your locks. Are they strong? Do you have two locks, and are all of the entrances locked with a lock, meaning windows, sliders and doors?

3) Alarms: When the criminals see that a home has an alarm or that it may have an alarm, that is also a good deterrent. Dogs can be looked at as an alarm. They will usually make a noise to alert you or the neighborhood.

4) Shrubs: Make sure that shrubs are not covering windows, and it is important that they are notso big as to allow someone to hide behind them. We all like greenery and plants, but make sure that you can see behind them. If not, that means you won’t be able to see someone hiding.

5) Get to know your neighbors: This is probably the best hint of them all. If you can get to know your neighbors, someone can watch your house when you leave . If they see somethingsuspicious, they can call the Sheriff’s Office and report the suspicious activity. Also, if you do go on vacation, you can call the Sheriff’s Office and request our CSU folks to do a vacation check of your residence.

Remember, we are talking about people who do not want to be seen or heard, and they want to get in and out as quickly as possible.So keep these few ideas in mind to help make your home safer and harder to break into.

Thank you Sheriff Mele for this great information.