Protecting your home over the holiday season

We are fast approaching the holiday season when many of us travel to see our families or head to our favourite holiday spots, leaving our homes unattended.

Statistics show that home burglaries are highest over the holiday season.

If you are planning to go away, you should start thinking now about how to best protect your home and contents while you’re away. An unoccupied house advertises itself to potential thieves without you even realising it!

Here are some great ideas to give your house a “lived-in” look that’ll leave no clue to thieves that you’re away. Before you go away you should:-
 
Cancel any newspaper deliveries.

1. Ask the post office to hold your mail, or get a neighbour to collect and hold it for you.
2. Let a neighbour know you’re going away and ask them to keep an eye out for anyone around your home. Also ask them to collect your junk mail.
3. Give your neighbour your car keys and ask them to move your car out of the garage and leave in the driveway every couple of days. Alternatively you could ask them to park their car in the driveway.
4. If you are away for an extended period of time, perhaps organise for a teenager or lawn mowing service to do your lawns and tidy the gardens.
5. The garbage bin. If you don’t want to ask a neighbour to wheel it in and out every week, put it away altogether.
6. Install some electrical timers inside your home to turn selected lights on and off for a period every night.
7. Turn the volume of your phone down and don’t leave a message telling people you’re away.

You may also have some ideas of your own. Remember, the key is to make your home look “lived-in”.