With plenty of recent headlines about home burglary rings and break-ins, it’s easier than ever to feel insecure about home security.
Fortunately, there are plenty of things you can do to discourage crime and avoid the headaches and emotional trauma associated with burglaries. The folks at Security Lynx — trusted local makers of nearly indestructible security screens for doors and windows — have the following tips on how to better assess your home’s security.
The Little Things
As with so many goals in life, starting small with common sense home protection is a great first step.
Because front doors, first-floor windows, and back door patios are among the most common entry points for home break-ins, always ensure your doors, windows and gates are locked — especially when nobody is home. Locks can include deadbolts and chains, as well as dowels or other braces for sliding doors and windows.
When not home, also ensure your lights are on, as drawn curtains and darkness make for an easy target. Automatic lighting systems can even be set to go on and off at specific times. In addition, installing motion sensor lights aimed at access areas serve a dual purpose: guiding guests to entrances while scaring away the unwelcome.
Other outdoor considerations include pruning vegetation so it doesn’t obscure building entrances, windows, or other vulnerable areas, as well as making sure that trees, carports, or lattices can’t act as natural ladders to upper floors. If someone can find a way to open upper-floor windows, you can bet they’ll try it.
Many people leave hide-a-keys around their property, whether under a flower pot, door mat, or something else. While it’s handy for when you or someone else accidentally lock yourself out, leaving the keys to your castle in an easy-to-access place isn’t ideal. If you insist on an extra hidden key, put it in a key safe that only you or someone else would be able to open.
You might also consider giving an extra key to a trusted contact, especially if that person is a neighbor. When you’re out of town, a neighbor can also lend a hand in picking up newspapers, packages, and other porch-delivered mail or even park their car in your driveway to give the impression you’re at home.
And although it might be fun to spread travel plans and vacation pictures across social media when you’re gone, consider waiting until you get home to post, or at least locking your posts to a security setting not accessible to just anybody.
Your most irreplaceable or valuable household items should also have their own secure place in your home. Consider a quality safe to hold jewelry, money, and important documents, and ensure that only you or those who need the combination have it.
Finally, consider buying and installing a digital doorbell. These provide you with immediate indication — through cameras and motion sensors connected accessible with smartphones — when someone is at your door, no matter where you happen to be at the time.
Security Lynx Security Screens
While not as effective as they once may have been — due to the brazenness of criminals and slowed response times or availability of law enforcement — both security cameras and alarm systems can still play an effective role in providing early warnings of impending break-ins.
Placing motion sensor alarms in front of windows and doors ensures that if any point of entry is breached, you’ll know about it right away. Even if someone isn’t arrested because your camera identified them, or someone still eventually breaks in, alarm systems can provide you enough time to call the police or arm yourself, potentially scaring the intruder away or limiting what they can get away with.
To take home security to the next level, however, consider installing security screens over your doors and windows.
Security Lynx screens — patented in Australia under the brand name CrimSafe — are about the most secure safety screens money can buy. And thanks to Ron Faber, Lynden resident and CrimSafe dealer, they’re now being manufactured right here in Bellingham.
These security screens are made of tightly woven, stainless-steel mesh that’s married to an aluminum frame with a virtually indestructible clamp system. They offer protection against anyone attempting to kick in a door or smash a window, and unlike security alarms, can be used to great effect even when you’re home.
“You cannot separate the screen from the frame,” Faber says. “A lot of the other brands, if you start beating on it with a baseball bat or at the corner with a sledgehammer, the screen will rip loose.”
Folks in Faber’s Bellingham workshop have tried their best to destroy the screens: hitting them with sledgehammers, baseball bats, knives, and crowbars. They only managed to separate the frame and screen by driving a forklift into the area where one was installed; the screen, however, still didn’t break.
Only extraordinary, impractical measures can be used to defeat a Security Lynx screen system, likely requiring more time and noise than any criminal is willing to expend. And compared to traditional metal bars, they’re a far more aesthetically pleasing security solution.
“They’re still attractive,” says Faber. “From the road, nobody knows you have a security product on. You don’t realize it until you touch it or pound on it.”
If you’re interested in seeing if Security Lynx screens are right for you, a quick phone call or website visit can get you on the road to a more secure home.
A Security Lynx employee can visit within a day or two of contact, examining and measuring your doors and windows. Once you give the go-ahead for install, Security Lynx can have your home fixed up in about three weeks, a significantly lessened lead time from when Faber imported screens from out-of-state.
For more information or to obtain a quote, please visit the Security Lynx website or call 360.922.0978 today.
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