Hopefully this can be a thread that lives on for some time.
If you have a IP in a questionable neighborhood, and your experiencing some break ins from time to time. Hopefully this thread will give you some productive ideas on protecting that property, without a major expense. There are several tricks of the trade to help fight this off.
I would appreciate everyone to offer up their suggestions to help those with this issue. The easy answer of course, is not to buy in these areas, but if you have already, then here is some ideas.
1. Board up the house during vacancy: This will definitely keep the crooks at bay, but does make it more difficult to rent. I would only do this in extreme situations.
2. Install Alarm System: This is very effective as well, if you keep in mind..DO NOT use a land line for the monitoring service, thieves will simply cut the phone line at the house. If you are going to have it monitored, do so with a cell phone transmitter (whatever it's called), this way there is no phone line to cut. I have actually had success with just putting the alarm in, with no monitoring, and putting signs in the front and back yard, and the stickers on every window and door. NOTE: Don't use the post the alarm company will give you for the yard signs, they are aluminum, and they will steal them to. I put a 2 x 6 in the ground about 3', paint it and screw the sign to this.
3. This is my favorite method.. I will buy very inexpensive timers and plug a simple $10 desk lamp into them. I will use no less than 3 per house, and put one in the front room, kitchen and the bedroom (hopefully there is a bedroom in the back of the house, if not, whatever room is back there). I then set the timers to go off at 30min, 1 hour and 2 hours. Then leave your blinds down, but crack them just enough for the light to get all the way thru them, but not so much as someone can see inside. This is a very effective method for me, and it's really inexpensive, should not cost you more than $125 for all of the equipment.
Hopefully that helps and others will participate in this, no need to be a client to help others out.
Have a great weekend!
John
Hey John,
Great advice for home security!
Since this thread is in the Overseas Deals thread, I'd just like to highlight the importance of securing your IPs especially if they are overseas where you may not easily visit it on a regular basis.Alarm systems are of course the best course of action. There's different kinds, including security cameras, automated lighting, and even just simply adding bright or more lights to your home and turning them on at night can help.
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