Top Tips for Securing Your New Home

In this latest home security guide, we will look at top tips for securing your new home, whilst making sensible plans to safeguard your family in the event of a fire. As the saying goes, it is better to be safe than sorry.

Any security measure is always a balance of inconvenience, cost, safety and the threat level posed. This calculation you will have to make for yourself, dependent upon the area you are moving to, and the type of property you are moving into. What we will offer you in this article is a guide to help you determine the level of the security in your home.

Some of the tips below will cost nothing, but may save your family from danger, and your home contents from theft. The idea is to make your home as safe for your family as possible, but as difficult a target as possible for criminals, whilst causing the minimum of inconvenience in your everyday life.

Criminals hate being seen, or having their presence alerted to by noise. Dogs, lights, and alarms are great deterrents. Having said that, do not advertise that you have the latest security system, a professional burglar will see that as an indication that you have something worth stealing.

I have deliberately not included home alarm systems or home security cameras in this article as every property is different, and everyone has a different budget. There are many sources of information on these systems for you to read.

But you may consider that a dummy alarm box is sufficient enough deterrent. Do not use one with a named company on it, as a good burglar will know how to disarm the most popular makes, so it is no deterrent to them. The opportunist thief, however, will likely walk away and choose an easier target. Equally, do not use fake CCTV with flashing lights, few real cameras have flashing lights on them.

The following guide will offer you top security tips to consider before and after your home move.

Before you even move into your new home, start thinking about how to secure your home and how to make your home safer. You do not want to live as if you are guarding the crown jewels, but considering making your home safe, and how to secure your home from intruders, is important.

Start to think safety and security from the moment you decide that you want to move out of your property.

Top Security Tips for Moving Home

There will likely be viewings from prospective buyers or new tenants for your home that you are moving out of. Here are the top 5 tips for safely allowing viewings of your home.

• Never allow anyone to view your home unannounced, always ensure the landlord or estate agent has advised you of the viewers’ arrival. The landlord or estate agent at the very least will have some verified contact information for the viewer.
• Never leave valuables, for example, watches or jewellery, on display during a viewing.
• If possible, get a family member to note the registration number of the viewers’ vehicle if they have one.
• Ensure the viewers are escorted at all times whilst in your home.
• Do not give out information that may compromise your home’s safety, for example, “We have no security system” or “we are out at work until 19:00hrs every day”
• Equally, do not highlight the fact that the painting they admire is an original Van Gogh.

The next consideration is your selection of the removal company you are going to use.

• Use a removal company review website to check whether the removal company you are considering using has any reviews that mention theft of items. Preferably, the removal company should be registered with a professional body like BAR (British Association of Removers).
• Make sure you get a good level of insurance and photograph every item of value you are moving.
• When packing in preparation for your move, consider moving high value, portable items, such as laptops and jewellery, yourself.
• If you must pack high value items in the shipping boxes, do not label the box stating ‘diamonds and pearls’, use codes or word associations, which make sense to you only, such as ‘Pearl Jam / Shirley Bassey / Stiff Little Fingers albums’ (pearls, diamonds, rings – you get the idea).
• Keep your finished packing boxes hidden from view of the windows, if possible. Draw the curtains or store all the boxes in a back room away from view. You do not want to make it easy for burglars by providing an easy take-away option for them.

Security Planning Tips to Consider Before You Move

Add planning the physical security for your new home into your pre-move lists of things to do. Arrange another viewing of your new home, then consider the following:

• 

  How many new locks you will need, EVERY external door lock will need replacing. Check if you need deadlocks or just to change tumblers. You can buy new ones before moving day which will ensure all the members of the family that need copies of the keys, can have them cut ready.

• Does the garage or shed have a key lock or padlock? They will need to be changed.
• Note how many smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors there are, most take 9v batteries. They will need replacing as you do not know how long they have been in the detectors.
• The same applies to any security alarm detectors or remote key fobs. Change them as soon as you can.
• Ensure the old home owners leave the alarm system code for you, perhaps with the solicitor, on moving day, you will need to change the code.
• Ensure you know how to work the alarm system.
• Check for any points of access that will need immediate attention, for example, broken latches on windows.
• If the sliding patio doors have no locks, measure the length of the runner from the door edge to the fixed window panel edge. You can cut a length of metal or wood to fill the channel which will prevent the door from being slid open.
• Do any exterior lights need new bulbs?
• Make a note of exit and entry points of the property, you will need to make a fire escape plan before you move in.

Security Tips For On, or Immediately After, Moving Day

• Change every door lock immediately – this is crucial – do it immediately – you do not know who has access to keys for your new home. Even if you are moving to rented property, the landlord should have no problem with this as long as you tell them, and supply them with a copy of the new key.
• Change padlocks or locks on any out-buildings or the garage if you have one.
• Change the burglar alarm code if there is one.
• Change the batteries in the smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, you do not know how good the batteries in them currently are.
• Change the batteries in any alarm detectors or key fobs if applicable.
• Do a thorough walk around your new home from the exterior, pretending you are an intruder. Look for rotten door frames, places that intruders may be hidden from view, vulnerable windows, flat roofs giving access to upper windows.
• Don’t forget to security check the garage or shed if you have them. Locking ladders to a fixed point within the garage or shed is a good idea.
• Test the fire safety plan for your new home that you have prepared. Make sure the whole family knows how to escape a fire, and where the pre-designated place outside the home is to rendezvous, should a fire break out.
• Make sure you have adequate buildings and contents insurance.

Security Tips as you settle into your new home

• Get to know the neighbours. This is really important as not only will they be a source of valuable info to get to know the local area, but will keep an eye on your property when you are out. Organising a house warming party may help you to do this.
• Remove all tall and dense shrubbery from around the perimeter of the house. If you must have shrubbery around the home, use plants with thorns such as roses.
• Use dense thorny shrubbery around the boundary of your home if you want privacy, rather than panel fencing.
• Install lighting along the walls and especially access points on the ground floor.
• If you buy new appliances, such as a TV, for your new home, dispose of the packaging away from the home. Take it to your local rubbish tip or recycling point, do not leave the boxes outside your home advertising your nice new 50’ TV.
• Ensure all the family use a ‘safe door procedure’, never opening the door without an adult, or not answering the door to anyone you are not expecting. Fit a peephole or video entry system, if possible.
• Always keep all exterior doors locked, even if you are in the house.
• You may even consider getting a family dog. The size of the dog is irrelevant, noise is the deterrent you require. Avoid getting a security trained dog, they rarely make good family pets, and security trained is very different from behavioral trained dogs.
• Use random timers for lights in different rooms for when the house is unattended.

Always think safety whilst considering security measures for your new home.

• 

  Do not put fixed bars on windows if that would be the only means of escape in a fire.

• Ensure everyone knows where the keys are for window locks.
• Never keep keys with key fobs that are tagged with the door description (i.e. back door), that they are used for. Use numbers, but ensure that the family are familiar with the number system you use. For example, it could be a different coloured fob for each floor, with the numbers following a clockwise route around each floor.
• Never keep your car keys on a table in the hallway. Criminals will steal the car and use it to transport away your home contents. Keep the keys hidden from open view.
• It is a good idea to keep a fully charged mobile phone in your bedroom in case of emergency.
• Have a fire blanket and fire extinguisher in the kitchen at the very least. Know how to use them.
• Review your fire safety plans, and test them regularly, as well as re-walking your property through the ‘eyes of an intruder’. A few minutes a month is all it will take.

You may even consider how to make a panic room within your home. This would be a room where the family would rendezvous, if for any reason they were unable to use the pre-designated fire escape route or, worst case scenario, intruders are in the house and you cannot escape.

• Ensure it has a window that opens onto the street or where people will easily hear your shouts for help.
• If the window has locks, ensure the key is readily available.
• Keep an emergency bag within the room. It should contain: a fire extinguisher, torch and two sets of batteries (new unopened packs, do not insert into the torch as they will deteriorate and ensure you know the expiry dates), water (change bottles regularly), blankets and a first aid kit. You may even consider a collapsible fire escape ladder or loud hailer or air horn for summoning help.
• Ideally, the door should be lockable from the inside, but if not, ensure at least two door wedges are in the emergency bag.
• Ensure at least two people are designated to take fully charged mobile phones into the room. Test that you can get a signal within the room when you plan your panic room.

You will never make your home impregnable to the professional thief, but the vast majority of thefts are opportunistic and carried out by petty criminals. With a little pre-planning and thought, however, you will have done your best to deter the majority of criminals and protect your family from danger.

Don’t forget to write a review of your moving company, including whether you found them trustworthy, and that all your items arrived safely. Other home movers will need to know that you found them honest and reliable.

Having spent some time and thought about your security, and with the fire safety tips above, you can now sleep peacefully in your new home and enjoy all the pleasures your new home will bring you.