After Labor Day, most people who own a vacation home tend to lock it up and head back to their everyday residence. However, leaving your vacation home unoccupied for any number of weeks or months exposes your property to significant risks, including burglaries, weather damage, and vandalism. Here follow ten tips to enhance your vacation home security.
- Install a home security system with a monitoring service. If your vacation home is broken into, the monitoring service can investigate immediately, enhancing the chances of catching the burglars in the act and recovering your property. It’s also best to include a fire monitoring system that alerts the local fire department in the event of a fire.
- If your home is going to be vacant during cold months, make sure to prevent frozen pipes and other low-temperature damage. Arrange to have a professional winterize your home. As added insurance, install a low-temperature monitoring system to warn you of dangerously low temperatures in your vacation home so you can take action before pipes freeze.
- Clean your home inside and out, including the gutters, to minimize the risk of vermin, mold and flooding caused by blocked drains and gutters.
- In areas that are prone to flooding, install a flood monitoring sensor system that alerts you, or your home security monitoring service, in the event of a flood.
- Maintain your landscaping. Make sure to trim bushes that could offer burglars cover, and low hanging tree branches that could damage your vacation home in the event of a storm.
- Contact your utility providers to have your gas and water turned off. If you have a home security system, make sure not to turn your electricity off.
- Re-direct your mail to your everyday residence. Mail piling up is a threat to your home security, as it’s sure sign to burglars that your home is unoccupied.
- Lock all your recreational outdoor items, such as barbeque grills, bicycles, surfboards, and garden furniture in a shed. It’s always a good idea to install floodlights with motion sensors that turn on automatically by your shed and your driveway to deter criminals and vandals.
- Take all your valuable items with you, such as expensive electronic equipment, artwork and other valuables. The more empty your vacation home appears, the less of a target it is to burglars.
- Be sure that all doors and windows are secured with solid, working locks. Double-check everything before leaving for your permanent residence.
Photo via Sylvar
