Nearly all articles about home security advise you

Nearly all articles about home security advise you in order to lock your doors and windows, and get the alarm. How does this work out available for you?

For many of you it is useless advice.

Most doors can be started open with one good kick by the kid weighing in at 155 pounds. How do I know this?

When I was a young kid, we went into a condo building that was about to be split down. We locked a bunch of doors and tried to kick them open up. At the time I was about 14 and even weighed about 135 pounds. It took me one or two kicks after a minor practice. My neighbor weighed concerning twenty pounds more than me and could consistently do in one punch.

A typical window has poorly made latches that can be pried open which has a regular screwdriver in seconds using very little force. Using a stick for a pivot and the principal of leveraging, only a few pounds of downward push on the handle will lift typically the window, pulling the latch screws out of the wood or plastic casings.

Get an alarm. This is fine in some towns and cities. Here in Atlanta, Georgia it can be a joke. At a eatery in trendy Buckhead, an expensive location in town, the alarm was tripped at 3: 00 am along with the cops showed up at 8: thirty the next morning, after a shift transform of the police force. Imagine if you were getting robbed and beaten at that time. Following five hours you would be in abrasive shape. Perhaps if the call was a residence the cops might have found its way to say, half an hour. That still will not do.

My advice is: Keep the bums away. An alarm is only as good as police response time. Smash and grab artists know the response time. These people test it by breaking windows over a home nearby (or even yours) and setting off the alarm. They time when the police arrive. If the response time is low they may soon be visiting your house again when you are not home. They will be in and out in minutes and have a pretty good haul. They know where to look and will have "cased" your home when you were not home, looking in windows together with making a "to grab" list.

Below are a few ways to make your home secure.

Add a deadbolt with a key on the inside. Yeah, there exists concern that in a fire you won't find the key. The answer to that is always to have the key in a nearby place where it is not easily seen and everybody in the house is taught where it is actually. Have it in a ring so it is no problem finding if dropped. Fires are in fact not as much common than burglaries, so give up obsessing about rare events even though inviting more common events.

Next chuck away the strike plate installed with the deadbolt and the door latch. Go buy a security strike. They are large, heavier and have longer anchoring screws set to the back of the strike plate, not centered for looks in the latch/deadbolt opening in the plate. Some of these are 18 inches long and have an opening for the deadbolt and latch. At 18 inches the plate seriously strengthens the whole door frame. Typically the longer screws set back in the denture allow the screws to grab the 2x4 framing the doorway, not just typically the flimsy pine door frame.

We have a company that makes a strike denture that goes from the floor to the top of the door frame (

). In order to kick it in requires splitting the studs that frame typically the doorway. Not happening...

If the doorway has large windows, add night clubs or cover the glass along with Plexiglass. Bars can be made to appear very decorative. Plexiglass can also function as a heat loss reducer, turning the particular glass into triple pane a glass. This only needs to be done if the door is on the side or rear or your neighborhood tends to be vacant out of 9-5 during the week.

If the body is really weak or has a section panel of glass, either these top to bottom strike is needed or add top and bottom latches of which go into the floor and top framework. (But the screws must go into the header above the door, not just typically the frame)

Double doors have these kinds of on the secondary door. Add these people on the inside of the primary door and the supplementary door on all double exterior doors. For double doors there is a plate that screws to the floor that can block both doors. The plate holds a slider that can bar probably both doors depending on where it truly is set.

About double doors: Typically the latch on some of the secondary entrance doors can be opened from the outside with a electric screwdriver. If they have a slide in the jamb, a screwdriver can be slipped within and open the slide, rendering it USELESS. The kind with a flip latch cannot be opened since the other front door, when closed, stops the switch lever from being flipped.

If you have the slide type of latch then the just thing to do is add additional latches on the inside of the door or the plate technique, which come in different finishes so it does not necessarily look that bad. I have as well seen nice heavy brass plated latches that do not look undesirable.

A locked door is only as strong as the door itself, so if your door has a hollow core or jalousie windows, it has to go.

Twice pane (insulated glass) windows would be the way to go for energy and protection. Breaking through and climbing by means of two sets of broken mirror shards is a deterrent and slows entry.

The basic latch (so referred to as lock) on most windows is fluff. For real security pin typically the windows if they are wood framed or add stops if they are vinyl presented. The way to pin a window is drill a hole through the reduce sash into (but not through) the upper sash. Insert a large nail bed in the hole and the lower sash is pinned down and the higher is pinned up. Using a sl? cutter or saw be sure to slice the nail short so it is challenging to grip with bare hands plus pull out of the opening. Then set up window is broken, the sash with its broken glass edges home security advice has to be climbed through.

If the window is vinyl, some can be pinned but most cannot. These can be blocked closed with a dowel cut to fit comfortably between the top of the bottom sash as well as the top of the window frame. Another way is to mess a stop block to the side of the window track.

By having the deadbolt with a key on the inside, thieves can only grab what they put out through the broken home window, so this acts a deterrent towards a 2nd theft, although not perhaps an initial attempt. By the way, 2nd thefts are incredibly common, because the thieves know your current insurance has replaced everything by using brand new items.

If you live a marginal (gentrifying) neighborhood, do not consider by being friendly and open you will avoid being targeted. The opposite is true; more people will KNOW what you experience. Using neighborhood kids to cut lawn, babysit, etc, invites theft. Nearly all theft is committed by persons 15 to 25. If you think your current lack of prejudice is a badge of honor and will protect you from theft, you will be delusional.

Bottom line, security is a way of thinking and living, not something you merely address once and forget about.

A large dog is still one of the best deterrents. Greater than a gun, which has its place, but only if you know how to use it, and even more importantly, are willing to use it. If you are not, it will certainly get taken away from you, and applied against you.

If you are willing to shoot someone, kill them inside your residence. Then there is only one version from the tale to tell police and to use against you by lawyers who will sue you later. Never follow anyone outside and shoot them or perhaps you will spend about 8-10 fending off jailhouse thugs.

This advice is not politically correct, which is your self-assurance it is good advice...