DIY Home Security Hacks Are Great At Helping Keep You Safe

Whether you realize it or not there are quite a few simple things you can do to help protect your home, your property, and your life. Remember, preparing doesn’t have to be hard or expensive.

These home security “hacks” aren’t all that complicated to implement, and they really do increase the likelihood a criminal will take a pass on trying to break into your home and choose an easier target.

Best of all is these DIY Home Security Hacks can be used effectively in a crisis situation too. Meaning if you start to use these now they’ll come in handy if society ever breaks down all around you.

Ready to learn what you can do to keep your home safe?

Check out all these incredible tips now.

15 Incredible DIY Home Security Hacks

1 – Don’t do the expected with spare keys:

People all across the nation think they’re being clever and smart when they leave a hidden key somewhere on their property. Guess what, criminals know to look for these, and in many cases criminals will observe you over a a few days or a few weeks to notice your habits.

That means if they ever see you “hide” your key they’ll find it quite easy to get into your home. If they never see you use your hidden key but know you’re away from your home for hours on end then they also know they’ve got a huge window of opportunity to find one if you have it.

Your best bet is to hide it in the most inconspicuous of places more than 50 feet from your home and/or in a coded key vault (like real estate agents use). Doing anything different is a recipe for disaster.

2 – Use plants as a protective barrier:

Have you ever seen houses where the plants underneath the windows look like they came straight from the gates of hell?

There’s a good reason people have those plants there, and that’s because planting those kinds of plants are effective at deterring entry into your home.

Plants like Holly, thistles, rugosa rosebushes, bougainvillea, blackberry vines etc. are enough to keep some criminals out of your house.

None of them want to get cut or scratched to gain entry. If you’re concerned about aesthetics, don’t be. Many of the plants can be brilliantly maintained and look quite amazing as they work to secure your home.

3 – Get a dog:

In many cases this might be easier said than done…but dogs really are one of the best options for total home defense.

Just the sound of a dog barking can be enough to send some criminals running. On top of that having Fido in the house will give you advance warning if something’s going on in the house that isn’t supposed to. Even a tiny little chihuahua is enough to cause enough ruckus to get you out of a deep sleep and in a place where you could help defend your home.

If you’ve got the time you can train your animal to defend your home. There are plenty of top-flight training schools across the country, so if you’re interested it’s well worth the time and research.

4 – Light up the darkness:

Criminals thrive in the dark. Which is why if there’s a chance you can eliminate their favorite habitat you stand a good chance of increasing your odds of never becoming a victim.

Motion sensors are an obvious choice because they save you money, add an element of surprise, and are effective at lighting up large areas to prevent thugs from breaking in.

When considering lighting you’ll also want to make sure your lights illuminate areas that could potentially be broken into, or that are areas you use when outside. With lighting like that you’ll be able to spot someone if they try and come in your home. Lighting up areas you use frequently gives you the ability to ensure the zone is safe when you venture outside.

5 – Strengthen your door:

What might sound like a major undertaking can be accomplished without much effort.

There are several things you can do to make sure your door doesn’t serve as an entry point for savage criminals.

• Replace your regular lock with long-throw deadbolts
• Use fortified strike plates to prevent entry
• Use long wood screws drilled into the doorframe to keep the door more secure
• Replace your standard wooden frame with a metal frame
• Use a steel core door instead of a standard wooden door
• Use multiple locks at different heights and two at the same height
• Ensure windows near doors don’t leave locking mechanisms exposed

6 – Communicate with the post office:

Are you going to be out of town for a few days? Then let the post office know and place a hold on your mail. The same thing goes for your normal newspaper delivery.

Nothing does more to communicate to criminals that your home is wide-open to being burgled than a bunch of mail over-flowing the mailbox or a stack of news papers on the front door…you might as well put a sign out front inviting them to take what they want.

If you have packages or other items not controlled by the USPS it’s always helpful to have neighbors collect those for you so they’re not sitting outside advertising you’re not going to be home for a while.

7 – Close blinds and hide your stuff:

There’s nothing wrong with having nice things. On the other hand it’s not a great idea to let everyone out there know you’ve got nice things.

That’s why it’s important to keep your blinds closed when you’re not at home and also why it’s a good idea to keep valuables hidden (in case you do leave the blinds open). If criminals don’t think your house is worth hitting then they might skip it in favor of another house they think is a better target.

Keeping the blinds closed along with valuables hidden communicates to thieves there’s nothing here to take.

8 – Use locks inside:

Following up on point #7. If you do have valuable items you don’t want taken then consider using locks inside your home to protect those objects.

Whether that’s jewelry, food and water storage, guns, ammo and more, you’ll want to keep them protected with locks. This could be as simple as a lock on a jewelry box or a key lock on a door that guards your food and water storage.

Criminals don’t like hard jobs and the more you do to make their job difficult the less likely they’re going to stay around in your home to ransack you for all you’re worth.

9 – Secure windows and sliding glass doors:

The front door is the most common entry point in a break in. As you can guess the second most common are going to be the windows and other doors.

Sliding glass doors are particularly susceptible to break in because they can easily be lifted off their tracks.

Windows are subject to forced entry too.

In each case you can place something in the track to prevent the sliding glass door and window being forced open. For sliding glass doors you can use a charlie bar, or a metal or wooden rod in the track to keep it safely in place to where it can’t be shifted off the track.

Windows can be secured the same way. You can also place screws in the track, add additional locks to the windows, or put steel bars that unlock from the inside over the window to help secure your home.

10 – Enlist your neighbor’s help:

In this day and age it’s rare people know their neighbors that well. Well your neighbors are going to be one of your greatest life lines when it comes to helping keep your home secure.

For one they can do things like shovel your walk in the winter, collect packages, take out your trash etc. They can also let you know if they ever see suspicious activity around your home taking place.

You don’t have to be their best friend, but knowing them and their name means they’ll have your back when you need it.

11 – Never keep your address with your keys:

I still can’t believe some people do this. While I understand you’d want your keys returned to you, anyone who places an address tag with their keys is begging to have their home broken into.

Not all people are benevolent, and if those people find your keys they now have one of the easiest ways of accessing your home in the palm of their hands.

What happens if you lose your keys you might ask? Well keep back ups and carry no identifying tags or marks on your keys so others can find your home.

12 – Make sure your home is looked after when you’re gone:

This is a continuation of what your neighbors can do for you and what you need to do when you’re gone from your house.

Consider you’re leaving for a month in the summer. Can you imagine what message you’d be sending if your lawn wasn’t mowed for that entire month?

Or what if you leave for a few days in the winter during a heavy snow season. The lack of snow shoveling (and footprints) visually demonstrates there’s not a soul around.

That means when you leave your home for an extended amount of time you’ll want to make arrangements to have your home looked after while you’re away. Not only will this keep you from having your home broken into it can also reduce the amount of money you have to pay an over-zealous city for fines against your property.

13 – Make use of warning signs:

Despite what you might think signs telling people to “Beware of dog,” or “Caution keep out” are actually really good at keeping people out of your home.

A verbal alert (written or not) signals to someone that you are a person who takes home security seriously.

While I’ll touch on this in more detail in point 15 one of the best ways to indicate your house isn’t to be messed with is a home security sign in your yard. It’s estimated these can help reduce break ins anywhere from 50-80%.

It really does help to have signs on your property.

14 – Use cameras on your property:

Thieves are not fans of being caught. Cameras greatly increase the chances a criminal is going to get caught in the act.

CCTV systems today are affordable, easy to use, and provide you with the kind of high quality video you’ll need to capture evidence on a criminal. Most thieves will see a camera and immediately determine your house is not worth the risk.

If you want to get the benefits of a camera without resorting to installing an entire system there’s an easy work around for that…you can install fake cameras. A fake camera won’t cost as much as a whole CCTV setup and can give you the same effect.

15 – Get a security system:

I think security systems are a great idea, but not for the reason most security companies advertise their usefulness.

A security system is not there to bring the police to you to help save your life.

Average response times for the police are going to be anywhere from 8-20 minutes, which if you think about it aren’t that great considering how quickly things can wrong in a break in.

So why use an alarm system? Because they can alert you when an intruder is in your house and they can sound the alarm and scare an intruder away. Motion sensors and door and window sensors are the way to go because they create a barrier around your home.

One Final DIY Home Security Hack

Many of these hacks are going to work quite well for you starting today.

But there’s one thing you need to pay attention to now because it’ll protect you when one of the most likely threats to America takes place.

I’m referring to an EMP survival plan.

If an EMP hits a lot of things you used to depend on to stay safe won’t be viable options.

Learn how to protect yourself from EMPS by clicking on this link or on the picture below.