Home invasion

Awhile back an ‘elderly’ friend, who is a snow bird, related that they had just that week returned from a trip. The night of their return their home and RV was burgled while they slept on the second floor. Fortunately this was discovered when they got up the next day instead of the intruders waking them up to get more stuff out of them. Thankfully the criminals ‘only’ stole and damaged stuff instead of beating and or killing the home owners.

Some general observations and opinions about this situation. The times that you are most vulnerable are the time while you are in transit to and from home [or destination] and the time right around that. Generally you are less alert due to the details and confusion of packing/unpacking and being tired after the trip. Often valuables are not as secure as people are often too tired to put stuff away properly.

Some considerations to improve your general security and safety. Shorten the time spent on each leg of your journey so that you can be more alert.

Keep the outside of your home well lighted with lights on poles such as ‘streetlights’ or lamp posts. Switchable lights over each window / doorway and at the corners of the house tends to dissuade people from trying to break into your home, scatter some motion activated spot light fixtures pointing out from the house that are coupled with some sort of noise maker like a radio other music player will help to alert you to activity.

You can set up switchable general lighting systems on your fence which will also tend to keep wrong doers away. Most robbers that I have dealt with would stay in the shadows and avoid well lighted situations.