When you’re away from home, what does watching your home really mean to the person you asked to be your eyes and ears while you’re away? Local advertisements, newspapers and unexpected packages regularly show up at your front door and must be removed promptly. Trash and recycling containers need to be placed for pickup and removed promptly. Interior and exterior lights have to be turned on and turned off in a logical presentation that suggests you are home. Failure to remove packages, newspapers and advertisements from front porches, failure to place and remove trash and recycling containers in a logical and timely manner, and failure to present logical exterior and interior lighting cycles suggests your home is unoccupied and an easy target for bad actors intending home burglaries. Do you expect a volunteer to do all of that?

Did the person you asked to be your eyes and ears while you’re away expect to do all the tasks you expected them to do? Probably not. Did you ask that family member, neighbor or friend to present your home so it appears from the street that you were home? Did they know what to do, did they know what you expected? Probably not. Would they have taken on the responsibility for the security of your home if they were aware of everything you wanted done?

Residential burglaries and car burglaries are increasing in frequency and burglars are emboldened because unoccupied homes, even short-term unoccupied homes, are unwittingly presented as easy targets. Bad actors are on the streets at times they think you’re not home or not awake, and when they think local law enforcement is preoccupied. Bad actors are looking for vehicles with key fobs still in the vehicles. They’re smart people, they don’t break windows of locked vehicles to get at an exposed laptops, wallets, or valuables, they simply move on the next car. In very short order, a bad actor will find a vehicle whose owner left their vehicle unlocked with a key fob and valuables inside. A key fob sometimes has house keys attached. House keys are an invitation to the vehicle owner’s unoccupied OR OCCUPIED home. When bad actors are at your neighbors’ homes they’re also looking at your home. Have you prepared?

Is that package still on your front porch? Has the weekly newspaper been picked up? Have the landscapers and contractors done what they’ve been contracted to do? The home’s interior lights are off and the home is dark, is someone home, does it matter? As we can see from local news reports and police department alerts, it doesn’t seem to matter if bad actors think you and your family are inside or not. A bad actor could be in your home. Are you at home?

HomeWatch of Westfield offers burglary deterrence services that are specifically tailored to a homeowner’s hame and lifestyle. We also assist homeowners with identifying simple solutions that make homes more secure and less attractive to bad actors.