With vacation season approaching – these days, who isn’t looking forward to some time off if it means staying close to home – the last thing you want is to leave your empty home vulnerable to break-in or damage due to an accident inside while you’re away.
Keeping your home safe while on vacation means securing the house to look lived in to prevent a break-in. It also involves taking care of the inside of the home to protect against an emergency involving water or electricity and other potentially damaging elements in the home.
Whether you’re away for a night or several weeks or longer, there are a number of things to consider before you go.
Outside The House
Secure all doors
Most burglars enter a home illegally by kicking in a door or otherwise breaking in through a poorly locked or weak door. Picked locks are very low occurrences relative to the other ways a thief can get into your home. If you have an old weak door or one with old loose and outdated locks, consider replacing with a solid wood door or metal doors with a quality deadbolt.
Don’t forget the back or side doors too. They often provide safety for a thief if they’re hidden and are often neglected by homeowners.
Secure all windows
Don’t forget to actually check every door and window before you leave to make sure they are actually locked. This includes windows in the basement and top floor. You don’t want to accidentally leave a side door unlocked or lower level window unlatched in your haste to leave home on time.
If you have a sliding patio door, ensure it is properly locked and make use of a Charley Bar or wooden dowel placed on the door track to prevent it from being forced open. Patio doors and sliding doors are common ways for a thief to enter the home.
Secure the garage door
If you have a garage attached to your house, this is a common way for thieves to gain entry to not only the garage itself but the house too. If you have a habit of leaving your garage open during the day in summer it not only give roving thieves a chance to see what you have in your garage but also what your schedule is like if they’re casing houses. When your garage door is open all day, they’ll assume you are home. When it’s closed, they may assume you’re away.
And if you leave your garage door wide open and happen to forget (or maybe your child does) to lock the door from the garage into the home, a thief could quickly sneak in while you’re home and rob you or even steal your keys to come back later when you’re away.
Lock your gate
Lock your back gate or otherwise secure it if it’s possible. This is especially true if you have things in your backyard that could be stolen. Sure, someone can jump a fence to get into your backyard but locking the gate at least makes it more difficult and if there is a prowler or even a neighborhood kid snooping around, a locked gate may make them quickly move on and not bother with your home.
Empty your mailbox
Ask a neighbor or friend who lives nearby to collect your mail and empty your mailbox. It’s one of the easiest ways to not make your home look empty even when it is. Even if going away for just a few days, mail can pile up and flyers that get thrown on your front doorstep can blow around and make it very obvious you aren’t home.
Inside The House
Set lights on a timer
Smart Homes and home security systems make it easier to turn lights and appliances like a tv on and off remotely on a timer to make it look like someone is home even when the home is empty. Sure, someone can ring your doorbell to check it someone is home but just because someone doesn’t answer doesn’t mean no one is home.
I stopped answering my door years ago when I’m not expecting a delivery as I couldn’t be bothered dealing with door to door salespeople. I’m not the only person who does this. Having a tv or radio on that is loud enough to be heard from outside of the house may cause a potential thief to think it’s people having a conversation. It doesn’t take much effort to do this on your part and it may help more than you realize.
Maintain your temperature
Protecting an empty home isn’t just about protecting it from theft or vandalism. You also need to take temperature into consideration. This is especially true during the hot summer and cold winter when temperatures are extreme.
Maintaining a reasonable temperature at all times not only saves on heating and cooling costs when the home is empty but also prevents extreme heat in the summer from causing humidity leading to mold and extreme cold in the winter from freezing water pipes leading to a flood. Set your thermostat to a reasonable temperature while you’re away. If you have a smart home or security system that has a phone app for monitoring, you can adjust your temperature remotely while you’re away.
Hide your valuables
If you have a home safe, store valuables like jewelry, cash and anything small enough to fit in it that could be easily found and stolen in the event of a break in. If you have to hide valuables, stay away from the usual places like a bedroom dresser or closet because that tends to be the first place a thief will look, expecting that something valuable will be there.
Protect against water damage
Water damage and flooding can potentially occur at anytime but when you’re away from home, it’s obviously worse since you aren’t there to react. And flooding can occur from inside the house (pipe or hose burst, leaking toilet) or outside the house (torrential rain, storm).
When you’re away from home overnight or longer, turning off the main water supply can help to eliminate the chance of a flood from a leaking or pipe burst. It only takes a few seconds to do but can save you considerable mess, ruined furniture and large expenses that flooding often causes.
A water sensor in your basement near the ground floor perhaps around the water heater and pipes and water sensors on appliances that use water like toilets, washer and dishwasher can help alert you if a leak or flood is in progress.
A $10 hose with water flow sensor from the hardware store can replace toilet and sink hoses and will shut off water supply if a surge in water pressure is detected which may indicate a leak or burst in the hose.
Protect against fire and smoke
Smoke inside an empty home obviously indicates the presence of something burning and a fire won’t be noticed until someone walking past your house sees it. Unless you have a monitored smoke alarm that an alarm company can respond to even if you aren’t home.
A monitored carbon monoxide detector is also a good idea especially for when you are home but even when you’re away. A CO2 leak can kill people and tends to come from a gas or flame-powered device like a stove, heater, furnace, fireplace, small engine or other. If you have a leak in your home you want to find out about it right away whether you’re home or not at the time before it becomes a bigger problem.
Close your curtains
Keeping your curtains, drapes or shades closed while you’re away makes it impossible for someone to peer into your home and see what’s there and to look for clues that the home is empty.
If someone can peer into your kitchen they can see if the house looks lived and if they come back the next day and everything is the same, they’ll figure out you’re not there. And if they can see your kitchen wall calendar through the window with the word “VACATION” or similar written on it, they’ll definitely know you’re away.
Of course, keeping shades completely closed 24/7 isn’t something people who are home tend to do so it might not be a great idea either. If you have louver-style shades you might consider pulling them in a way that does let some light in to indicate someone is home but also prevents people from peering inside.
Have a fire extinguisher handy
Granted this won’t help you if no one is home at the time but having a functioning fire extinguisher in the house at all times can come in handy if you ever have a fire in the kitchen while cooking or some other room or even outside your house ie. barbeque, outdoor fireplace.
Turn down your water heater
Modern water heaters come with a Holiday or Vacation setting that enables you to turn down the heat to save money rather than boiling water that isn’t going to be used while the home is empty. That way, the heater stays on and warm water will be available on your return but your electricity bill will be lower the longer you are away.
Calculate your expected gas or electricity cost of your water heater by checking out the Energy.gov
website’s cost calculator. You can also save money moving forward by turning down the temperature on the heater and still having hot water produced albeit at a lower cost to you. On average you can expect to pay around $224 – $438 per year in gas and electricity costs respectively for heating your water.
Stay off social media
No one from your household – especially your kids – should be broadcasting that you’re going away or are currently on vacation on social media since it’s an advertisement that your home is empty. You really can’t be too safe. If you want to broadcast a trip and vacation pictures online, do it when you’re home.
It’s important to tell your kids since they may not realize the ramifications of posting online while you’re away. This is especially true if they have friends or acquaintances who hear about it and might be prone to doing stupid things while your home is empty.
Waiting several days to talk about your trip isn’t much of a trade off when you consider that the alternative might be making your empty home a target for vandalism or theft.
Protect against a power surge
Unplug your tv, microwave, extension cords and charger plugs before you head out on vacation to prevent a power surge from frying your appliances. Use a power surge protector if you have one. With the prevalence of chargers for tablets, phones, and other devices, it’s easy to buy a replacement charger that claims to offer surge protection that doesn’t.
A personal experience: I was on my laptop at home working away and had it plugged it to recharge. Suddenly the power went out just on the floor I was on and I heard a clicking sound coming from around my laptop. It turns out that a fuse on the breaker in the basement had been triggered probably due to a power surge. I reset the breaker, the power came back on but my laptop charger no longer worked. My laptop was fine as was every other appliance on the floor but the charger was toast. I had purchased this replacement charger online and when I checked the receipt, it clearly stated that it came with surge protection. In this instance, the surge protection either didn’t work or simply didn’t exist and the cable burned out.
Summary
- Making your home look lived in is the quickest and most effective way to avoid having it targeted by a burglar while you are away.
- Have your mailbox cleared by a neighbor or relative as a box full of flyers and mail is a quick way for anyone to see that no one is home.
- Have someone check on your home if possible to adjust window shades, collect mail, turn lights on and make the home lived in.
- Consider the use of a monitored home alarm system that you is capable of being operated through your cellphone with an app. Modern systems offer the ability to turn lights on and off, adjust the thermostat and more, even when you’re not at home.