On a daily basis, you are probably careful to lock your doors behind you when you come in or out of your home. You may leave the light on for your porch and you may even have additional security measures in place such as a home security system that is aligned with a company that is there for you in the event that an intruder gets in. These are all very good steps in being a homeowner who is concerned about their personal safety and that of their family. You want to feel safe in your domain and in protecting your loved ones and your belongings. We are all at risk of intrusion by unsavory criminal elements that live in our society. However, in a survival situation, desperation takes root and those who are already of a criminal mindset know that there are going to be very few consequences if emergency services are overwhelmed or no longer operating. Your home security in a survival event is of utmost importance. There will be factors of society who go from house to house looking for supplies that they can take from you, and they may possibly pose other threats. You don’t want to go to all of the effort to stock up on supplies and survival gear only to have it wiped out because your home was not fortified well enough to keep these people from accessing it. Even in today’s society, we have looters who will use any opportunity possible, including disastrous weather events, to steal from others. You can implement a seven-day plan to turn your home into a secure fortress that will keep it from being vulnerable or at the very least make it extremely difficult so that the person looking to steal from you will move on to the next house that is an easier target.
Day 1: Conduct a Home Assessment
On day one, you want to do a thorough assessment of where your home stands in terms of protection. You never want to assume anything. You need to identify vulnerabilities through the eyes of a survival prepper. That way, you can plan your resources more effectively and put your budget towards investing in a more secure home. You want to do this early on because if you buy a ton of supplies, and your home isn’t secure, you could lose it in an instant. The first thing you want to do is start from the outside. Walk the perimeter of your entire property and evaluate your gates or fences – or brick walls, depending on how your property is set up. If they can easily be breached, make a note of it and write down the materials each thing is made of, too. You may have repairs to make or you may see things that could be made stronger or less inviting. You don’t want people to be able to hide on your property. This may mean trimming or cutting down bushes that they can hide in. It’s better if the home is visible from the roadway so they have a deterrent in coming onto your property. Next, go through and look at entry points to your home to see if the doors and windows are fully secure. You’re not just looking at locks. You need to consider how easy it is to break in – if the door frame or window frame is fragile. Don’t ignore the second story, either. Ground windows are most vulnerable, but a desperate thief will climb up to access any entry point. Don’t forget the back of your home, doggie doors, basements and the garage, too. Take a look at outdoor lighting at night to identify any dark areas. You’re going to want to prioritize your findings so that you can begin fortifying your property as soon as possible.
Day 2: Reinforce Entry Points
Unless you have a specific vulnerability, you can go in the order that is most logical, beginning with the reinforcement of entry points. Most people feel as if their doors and windows are adequately secure, but when you start looking at it from a survival point of view, you realize they can easily be accessed if the wrong individual comes onto your property. There are many people who have been victims of intruders who come straight to the front door and kick it in. If you have a door that is made out of weak material or the frame is not strong, you want to replace these as soon as possible. You also want to look at the locks that are currently on your door. You definitely want to have a deadbolt installed and replace and reinforce anything like a strike plate or door jammer so that it’s more difficult to access this entry point. One thing that can easily help you, which is very inexpensive is to replace the hinges and screws so that they are longer and anchored well into the door frame. Usually, they come with very short ones that are easy to kick out. If you have a sliding glass door on your home, this is a big vulnerability that someone can simply break into. However, usually they will try to force the door open first, and you can add a security bar that prevents this from happening. You can also add additional locks to the top and bottom of these doors for added security. If possible, try to have the sliding glass door replaced with glass that it is difficult, if not impossible to break. When it comes to your windows, you want to start off by adding some security window film that you can apply to the glass that will make it harder to break. This is not impenetrable, but it does slow them down and allow you to defend yourself. There are other ways you can add protective layers to your windows, including bars, additional locks, and different types of glass that are stronger than what is usually installed.
Day 3: Enhance Your Lighting and Surveillance
On day three, you’re going to work on enhancing the lighting and surveillance aspect of your property. During your analysis, you should have pinpointed any areas on your property that lacked proper lighting, so you want to work on installing something in those areas that will deter potential intruders. You have several options with your lighting, including solar lighting which will help you in the event that the grid goes down. You don’t want everything to be reliant on electricity or even batteries. You may want to install motion activated lights so that potential intruders are startled whenever they are sneaking up onto your property and are suddenly highlighted because of their movement. Make sure you have something like LED flood lights that have a long lifespan, and position them high up so that no one can tamper with them before they try to access your home. For your surveillance, you want to have something in place even if you are already signed up with a home security program. Ideally, it will have a clear image and night vision capabilities, and you want to record and store the footage if possible. You want to create a mix of visible cameras that deter people, and discreet cameras that they won’t notice and be able to damage. You can have cameras that connect to your smartphone and allow you to monitor your property and even communicate with someone who is on it.
Day 4: Install Your Alarm Systems
On the fourth day, you can focus on the alarm systems that you want to have in place for survival purposes. Alarms are not only meant to notify you that there is an intruder on your property, but also to scare off the intruder and cause them to go away. Initially, you may want to have an alarm system that is powered by electricity. You can have alarm systems that work on your door and as window sensors, and whenever they are breached, a loud noise is activated and a security company is informed. But keep in mind that during a survival event, you may not always have electricity. You also want to have options that don’t require the grid. For example, you can have a tripwire alarm. This is something you can set up where a loud noise occurs whenever someone accesses an entry point. This can buy you time to grab your self-defense mechanism and defend yourself and your family. Setting up an alarm system is not the end of this process. You have to test the system to make sure that everything is working, whether it’s an electrical system or something that you rig up yourself.
Day 5: Create Secure Storage Solutions
On the fifth today, you want to secure your supplies with a storage solution that is not easy to access. You may already have safes on your property, but you also want to set up some hidden compartments and basically fortify your supplies so that people can’t simply access your home and take whatever they want. The reason you want to have hidden compartments is so that if someone does get in your home and make off with any of your supplies, you will have backup supplies that they were not able to find and steal. You can start off with a simple safe. This can be as big or small as you want and it can be both fireproof and waterproof so that all of your important documents and even some cash is well protected in the event of an emergency such as a natural disaster. You can choose between those that are biometric, which use your fingerprints or digital keypads or old school combination locks. Make sure that your significant other and possibly your children know how to access this safe in the event of an emergency and bolt it down on your property so that it can’t easily be carried off. Hidden compartments can be placed in a variety of spaces inside and outside of your home. Some people have a fake bookshelf that opens up into another room, but you can also have some sort of floor compartment or even just a book that has been hollowed out on a bookshelf where you place some important items such as cash. If you have storage containers for your supplies, you may be able to put locks on those or chains with combination locks that will deter people from trying to access them and make off with your food, water, first aid and other supplies.
Day 6: Develop Emergency Exit Plans
On the sixth day, you’re going to come up with your emergency exit plans. Yes, you want your home to be properly secured and your supplies to be safe, but if anyone does get onto your property, you want to have a way to leave and keep yourself safe if and when it’s necessary. For example, if you are in a civil unrest situation and they are going home to home and burning homes down, you want you and your family to have a plan laid out so that they know exactly how to depart the property and stay alive. You have to start by looking at the different exit points from your home, which may even mean going down into the basement and exiting through an outside door. Think about whatever is quick and safe. That doesn’t just mean exiting through a door, but also windows. Conduct a walk through to see what the fastest exit would be based on where the threat was on your property.
Day 7: Conduct Periodic Family Drills
It’s not enough to simply have all of this information in your head. You have to inform your significant other as well as your children about how all of this works, because it will affect them, too. It’s important for you to conduct family drills with scenarios in mind so that everyone can practice what to do in a real life emergency. You don’t want to instill fear in everyone, but instead make them feel empowered to get through any type of emergency event. It’s important for these skills and reactions to be an automatic reflex rather than something they have to think about after they have already gone into a panic mode. You want them to be able to respond with ease. If you are going to assign different roles to each individual of the family, make sure they understand how that role works, why it’s important, and what they need to do in order to master it. Simulate a variety of different situations. It’s not always going to be a criminal who is breaking down the front door. It could be a wildfire that has grown out of control and is coming out of the property, requiring everyone to exit as quickly as possible in a certain way. By the end of day seven, you will have a strong and secure home and the inhabitants inside will feel safe, yet prepared that they can handle any type of event that unfolds, regardless of how minor or how serious it is.
One of the best ways to secure you home is to enhance your lighting and surveillance. There are simple replacement lights that also have video cameras built in. This will allow you to see what is happening when there is motion that is not normally there. This motion activation works both day and night. Integrate your lighting and surveillance systems to work together seamlessly.
Check out these poplar camera lights.
