How to Keep Your Home Safe While on Vacation

Many burglaries occur while the homeowners and family are away from the house. It's often ridiculously easy to spot a house that has been unoccupied for a day or more and is likely to be so longer. Taking a few simple precautions can minimize your chances of being a victim of crime.

Many common sense tips are well known by now. Stop the mail, stop the newspaper or have a neighbor pick them up. Lock up the house and leave a light on. But even these common techniques could use improvement.

Stopping the newspaper could just look like you decided not to have it anymore, so that's fine. But, stopping all mail delivery is also a signal to thieves, since everyone gets at least some, if only junk mail. Better to have it picked up daily, then taken inside the house by a neighbor, who then exits out the back.

Leaving a light on is fine, too, except when it burns all the time. Then it looks unnatural and staged. Better to have at least a simple timer that turns it off during the day and on at night. Better still is to have one that will turn it off and on at night several times, as you would if you were home. Putting the stereo or radio on a timer is a good idea, too.

If you don't have a home security system, vacation time might be a good time to consider installing one. Plan ahead, so you have plenty of time to get the right one without being pressured. But ensure that you get one that is not only regularly monitored, but offers neighborhood patrols by your house.

If or when you do get a home security system, be sure to notify them that you plan to be away. Provide them with dates. Most companies will pay a little bit better attention if they know there's no one at home.

A friendly letter to the operations manager doesn't hurt and does improve your odds of extra service during your vacation. Everyone likes to be thanked for positives, since complaints for poor performance are so much more common.

Best of all is to hire a house sitter that will stay there at least part of the time. It adds a cost to your vacation, but having a person in the home - especially at night - will ward off all but a small minority of criminals. Sometimes you can work out a trade with a neighbor or responsible teen friend of your own kids. You cover their home on vacation, they cover yours.

If you have a neighborhood watch program, as is very helpful, be sure to let the one near your home know your plans. There are times when surprises are best left to birthdays.