1. Make sure your home looks busy.

Most thieves are opportunists. They come to a neighborhood and look for houses that appear defenseless and unoccupied. An important part of home security is making your home appear occupied at all times.

A big clue that you are out of town is if your mail or newspapers are piling up. Never allow newspapers to pile up in the front yard.

Interior lights are also important to make a home appear occupied. Not only must some lights be on, but the light matrix must change just as it would if the house were occupied. The easiest way to do it is with timers.

Another very simple way to make a house seem occupied is to leave it on on a television or radio with the volume high enough so that someone who approaches the doors or windows can hear you.

Leaving a car in the garage or on the driveway can also be a deterrent. If you are going on a trip and don’t leave a car at home, you may want to make arrangements with your next door neighbor to park one of their cars in their driveway while you are away.

2. Create perimeter defenses.

Another important security measure in the home is making it difficult to access the house. This is most commonly accomplished with a tall wall or fence.

In many parts of the world, this is the main home security tactic, but it suffers from some shortcomings. Generally, it is easier to sneak undetected over or under a wall or fence than to force entry into a house.

However, perimeter defenses often give home occupants a false sense of security that can lead them to neglect closing doors and windows. For this reason, perimeter defenses are most effective when they are very difficult to penetrate or when they are reinforced by cameras and / or motion detectors.

3. Make sure all entrances are well lit.

For most homes, perimeter defenses, such as walls and fences, are of little use. Most people assume that the next line of defense is doors and windows, but there is something that comes first. It is based on the simple fact that thieves want to do their work where no one can see them. This means that you want to ensure that the exterior of your home is well lit, especially at potential entry points. An effective solution is motion detector lights. These inexpensive devices can be set to turn on whenever something moves near them.

4. Install door locks and peepholes.

Most home security measures focus on the doors. With doors, the two main issues are structural integrity and locks.

Recommended for exterior doors, deadbolt locks are substantial locks that lock the door into the frame. The bolts come in keyed versions, which always require a key, and lever versions that only require one key to open from the outside. If there is no glass nearby, the toggle version is better as it is more likely to be used.

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Sliding glass doors present a special challenge. Most are vulnerable to breakage. The simplest safety upgrade is to attach a metal bar or broom handle to the inside track of the floor. Some sliding doors can simply be pulled off their tracks. There are screws on the top and bottom of the inside of the door that control how it sits on the track. Adjust them so that the door cannot be lifted so much that the bottom part is released from the track.

Each entrance door must be equipped with a peephole. This is a very inexpensive and easy to install device that allows you to see a visitor before opening the door. For the same reason, an intercom can allow you to communicate with a caller before deciding whether to open the door or deactivate an alarm.

5. Secure the windows in your home.

While your home may have only two or three doors, it may have a dozen or more windows. Burglars know that if you systematically check all the windows in a house, chances are that at least one is left open.

Most standard window locks are very simple to push or pick. Heavier locks will greatly improve the security of your home. Another simple and inexpensive tactic that is effective for double-sash windows (those with two sliding panes going up and down or side to side) is window dowels. There are specially made pins, or large nails can be used easily.

6. Remember the other access points in your home.

Exterior doors and windows are not the only points of access to most homes. Many thefts occur through garages. In addition to having valuable items stolen from the garage, the door leading from the garage to the house is often not secured or is not strong enough to stop a burglar.

Also check to see if skylights, crawl spaces, attic vents, and other openings can provide burglars with unrestricted access to your home.

7. Consider installing an alarm system.

Alarm systems offer few physical obstacles to thieves. Instead, they offer an important psychological one.

In a neighborhood with an efficient police force, the alarm substantially increases the chances that the burglar will be caught. Even in areas where police response times are slow, the noise and attention of an alarm can deter the thief from completing their mission.

The cost of alarm systems varies widely. A thief can easily disable some of the simplest and least expensive detection devices. The more complex and unknown the set of devices, the more likely it is that the thief will activate the alarm or stop trying to deactivate it.

Response times to alarms depend on several factors. First is the effectiveness of the monitoring service you are using. When considering a monitoring service, get the names of people who have had the opportunity to observe response times in the past.

The second factor is the protocol that you request the monitoring service to use. Who do you ask to call in what order? In some cases, it may be better to alert a helpful neighbor than to alert an unresponsive police force.

The third factor is the 911 services in your area. Most work fine and some don’t. While you do not have direct control over 911 services, you may be able to draw attention to the problem and seek a solution through the political process.

8. Keep a record of your valuables.

Most area police departments encourage homeowners to etch their social security number on the metal surfaces of valuables that are prone to theft. When the police find marked stolen merchandise, they can easily find the true owner and return it. Photographs of especially valuable items, such as art and antiques, can help law enforcement recover property.