Keep your home safe while your away

Before you post on Facebook about the great vacation you are going on, you may want to think twice. Many people go on vacation and by posting this on social media, you are informing any potential bad seed that your home is wide open for the taking. There are several things you can do to keep your home safe while you¹re away.

Maintain Your Garage — Keep your door locked, and not just your garage door. Make sure the door between your house and garage are also locked. Even with the best possible security measures in place, your garage door is vulnerable. If your garage door can be locked and you will be away from home for an extended period, lock the garage door as well.

Put Stuff Away — One way to give a nasty thief an idea to potentially rob your home is by leaving your objects that they could use in plain site. An example of this is if you live in a two-story home and you left your ladder in plain site, this might get the wheels spinning and could potentially lead to a break in. Other examples of this could be yard tools or anything they could use to break a window.

Posting on Facebook — This may be a challenge for some but what many do not understand is that by posting your vacation pictures while you are gone on vacation, you are signaling to the world that you are not at home and will not be returning any time in the very near future. We may think we know who our Facebook friends are but it is always better to be safe than sorry. Another example of this is leaving newspapers piling up in the driveway; it might be helpful to ask a neighbor to kindly hold on to them for you.

Clean Up Your Yard — You may never landscape your yard but it may be helpful when leaving on vacation. If a burglar was to see a home with long grass and brown bushes, this may send a signal that you are not home and have not been home in awhile.

Pick an Alarm System That Works For You — When it comes to picking an alarm system, it is crucial to do so by keeping your daily life in mind. There are a lot of factors that come in to play when deciding on an alarm system for your home an example of this is to look at your home and determine how many windows and doors you will need protected.

Elizabeth Dodson is co-founder of HomeZada, an online home management solution to help you manage everything about your home in one place.