Tips for Residential Safety

• Lock your vehicle at night and keep all personal property indoors, including your keys
• Keep garage doors shut and locked to avoid access to your residence and property
• Install lights around the exterior of your house for evening/night time hours; use motion sensor lights if you don’t want them on all night.
• Install an alarm system on your house and use it.
• Keep all doors to your residence locked, even while inside and outside your residence. It is possible that while you are distracted in your backyard, someone may enter your home through an unlocked front door while you are preoccupied.
• Do not keep spare keys in the immediate vicinity of your residential entrances.
• Install a peephole in your door.
• Install deadbolt locks.
• Put jewelry and valuables in a locked safe with the code in a separate location. Be sure the safe is too large or heavy for someone to carry.
• Keep blinds/curtains closed at night. It is easy to view inside a lit residence, especially when it is dark outside.

• Ask a neighbor to keep an eye on your house.
• Notify the alarm company and advise the Police Department in case of emergency.
• Request the Postal Service hold your mail until you return, and do the same for newspaper subscriptions.
• Set timers on lights so it appears the home is occupied.
• Do not post that you are going on vacation on social media websites and do not set voicemail/answering machines indicating when you will return.