Yes, another article about home security tips.

Most of you know that I’m into cars. To me, the cars I own or have owned have been very cherished.  Today, now in my 50’s, nothing is more cherished than the safety of my family.

When we moved to guard-gated community in South Orange County. We felt quite a bit safer than we would have felt in unguarded community.  Nevertheless, we bought and installed state of the art alarm systems , replete with sensors, cameras, motion sensors, touch sensors.

We then reinforced every door, changed all the door hardware and installed additional restraints on every window and every door.

We are currently adding shatter-proof mylar film on every exterior window. Short of Claymore mines and hidden bunkers with overlapping fields of fire, we’ve done about as much we could without getting carried away. There are multiple cameras inside and outside,. Virtually every angle of approach to an edoor or window is covered by cameras,

My circuit breaker panel is also padlocked and my home alarm system has a backup battery system.

My side gates are padlocked, 24 hours a day.  My gardener and pool guy have to knock on my door so I can let them in (I work from home). Outside my home, wherever there are windows, there’s prickly/thorny bush (either rose bushes or in the backyard, Agave plants)

While all of this won’t stop a determined thief from getting inside, one who isn’t afraid to make a lot of noise and draw a lot of attention, but if I’m home while someone breaks in, I’m prepared and let’s just say that the thief won’t be walking out under his own power. To that end, I’ve booby trapped all of our exterior doors in such that if someone does get in, he’s going to get a nice surprise.

Many of you won’t go to all of that expense. We’ve spent thousands on these measures.

But you can build your home security in layers as you can afford it.

Home security starts with denial of access: you want to make your home visibly hard to get into. Alarm signs outside are a good idea. Remember the bushes and padlocks I mentioned, that’s affordable as a first layer.

Next, I recommend taking a hard look at windows and doors. Are they really as safe as they can be? Can you install restraint bars to make the windows and sliding glass doors very hard to open?

These things are the basics – the very least you should do.

Next, it’s time for a 24 hour monitored alarm system. ADT and SImpliSafe  make great systems that can be can scaled over time. We’ve supplemented our alarm systems with Ring cameras inside and out. The whole house is wired with tied-in smoke detectors and life alert necklaces for when we get old (er).

Now you’re in the big leagues.  We added padlocks to our garage door. Yes, the roll up door for when we go out of town.