Homeland Security: Looking After Your Property While On Vacation

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While the summer months is the best opportunity to get on vacation, and perhaps celebrate your birthday, or the fact that you actually have two minutes to yourself, you may have a few worries back home. Did you secure everything properly? Looking after our home when we've gone away for a week or so can be done, but what are the best ways to do it?

Be A Good Neighbor

Being a good neighbor has many benefits, namely in this situation, you can ask them to keep an eye on your home. Nowadays, we don't always have a productive relationship with neighbors, but if you are one of the lucky people who have friendly neighbors and don't get out much, you can ask them to keep an eye out for any signs out of the ordinary.

Get Secure

Most people have a security system of some sort but if you don't, one of the best ways to keep your home secure is one of the more modern systems that you can access from your tablet. Because you can set up a mini security system that displays 24-hour imagery on your tablet, you can see what's going on at any time of day, from anywhere in the world. If you can't afford something like this, another simple way would be to install timers on your electronics.

Don't Show The Signs

Timers on your electronics are one of the great ways to show that there is someone “at home”. A house that is dark at night for a week is one of the most obvious signs that someone has gone away, but also, you don't want to just leave the lights on all day and all night. In addition to timers, you can redirect your mail, especially if you're going away for a lengthy period of time. You don't want people to catch wind of the fact that mail has built up, leaving your home unguarded. The image you need to present is the same one as if you were staying there normally. For example, do you leave the blinds open during the day? If you do, and then you suddenly close them before you head away, this will be a red flag to a burglar.

Don't Post Everything On Social Media

This depends on how secure your social media accounts are. It's very tempting to post loads of images on Instagram or Facebook, but if you are a member of groups where so many people can access your page, such as neighborhood groups, you don't know who is watching. The best plan of action is to wait until you return from your vacation before posting at all of those pictures of you, drink in hand.

Making sure that your home is secure when you're away on vacation could be a very stressful thing to get right, especially if you've gone away and that nagging doubt of if you locked one of the doors is looming large in your mind. But looking after your home doesn't have to be a chore.

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