The Cornerstones of Home Defense
The Best Defense against a home invasion is making your home a hard target. This is accomplished in two basic ways: enhancing the physical security of your home and establishing and following sound family security rules.
Hardening Your Home:
Your first priority in keeping your family safe should always be to invest in the external security of your home. Good physical barriers and warning systems will ideally deny criminals entry to your home completely. Better yet, they will send a strong message to anyone even considering your home as a target that they are better off looking elsewhere. Even if they do target you, sound physical security will slow them down, call attention to their actions, and give you and your family time to react.
There are a number of key elements to a good home security system. Although the exact needs of your home or apartment may vary, you should consider all the following aspects of home “hardening” and address them as appropriate.
First of all, you should take a look at your home from a criminal’s point of view and assess it from the outside. This assessment should include close scrutiny of your exterior lighting. By illuminating the exterior of your home, especially with motion-activated lights mounted high enough so they cannot be tampered with, you can prevent criminals from approaching your home unnoticed and deny them hiding places around your home.
Many home invasions begin with the criminal simply kicking in your front door. This can happen so quickly and so suddenly that you have very little time to react and nobody outside your home really notices. The best way to prevent this type of entry—and a great way of establishing your home as a hard target—is to harden your front door. First, choose a sturdy, solid wood door or a steel-sheathed door. It should be hung with heavy-duty hinges installed with extra-long screws (like three inch deck screws), not the short ones that typically come in the package. To further strengthen the hinge side of the door, at least one screw in each hinge should be replaced with a steel nail or pin that extends about 3/8-1/2-inch above the surface of jamb side of the hinge and “nests” into the matching hole in the door side of the hinge. This reinforces the hinge joint in the closed position and prevents the door from being removed—even if the hinge pins are taken out. If you don’t want to “roll your own,” purpose designed “hinge studs” of this type can sometimes be found at locksmith shops.
Don’t settle for an ordinary door knob lock for your front door. These are weak and can be easily defeated. The security of your front door should only be trusted to a high-quality, name-brand deadbolt lock. The interior side of the lock should be a knob style; it should not be double keyed. Removal of the internal key could prevent you from being able to leave your home in an emergency, so stick with a knob. If you do not have a steel-sheathed door, the area of the door around the lock should also be reinforced with a metal door reinforcement.
In order for a dead bolt lock to do its job, it must anchor solidly to the door frame. The typical strike plate included with most locks is not up to this task. Instead, you need to invest in an extended, high-security strike plate. These strike plates are typically about 8-10 inches long, include multiple holes for mounting the plate, and include extra-long screws that anchor the plate solidly into the structure behind the door frame, not just the wood of the frame itself.
With a solid door properly installed as your front door barrier, your next step should be to ensure that there are no weak spots around the door that would compromise its function. The most common example of this is a window located immediately adjacent to the door. Although this window does offer the positive function of allowing a view of anyone standing outside your door, by simply breaking the window, a burglar or home invader could easily reach through and unlock the door.
The presence of a window adjacent to your door frame also means that you do not have a solid structure around the entire frame. This weakens the overall structure of the door and compromises its function as a barrier. Ideally, it should be eliminated by having a competent contractor “fill in” that area with a solid wood structure. If this is not possible, you should at least prevent someone from being able to access the lock if he breaks the window by covering the interior of the window frame with a sheet of strong Plexiglas® or Lexan® plastic, screwed firmly into the wood.
If filling in the window near your front door limits your ability to see someone standing outside the door, make sure you install a peephole in the door or a convex mirror that allows you to see that blind spot from another window.
Obviously, if you have any other ground-level or easily accessible exterior doors in your home, you need to take these same steps to strengthen them. Criminals will seek the path of least resistance, so don’t leave any weak spots in your defense.
Sliding patio doors should also be strengthened to keep them from being a weak link in your home defense. The traditional broomstick-in-the-track method of blocking these doors is a good start, but many criminals are wise to this and have figured out how to “rock” the sliding door to overcome this barrier or create an opportunity to pop it out of place with a piece of wire. A better solution is a purpose-designed security bar that can be wedged between the door and the frame above floor level. This creates a much stronger barrier and cannot be dislodged or overcome as easily as a dowel rod or broomstick. If you want to use the sliding door for fresh air, but don’t want to leave yourself vulnerable, these security bars are adjustable to you can open the door far enough to allow air—but not a person—to come in.
Ground-level windows or easily accessible second-story windows (like those with a balcony or adjacent roof area) should also be evaluated as potential weak points. Although strengthening glass is always going to be a challenge, it can be done. The best way is the addition of 3M Scotchshield®–a reinforcing film that transforms ordinary glass into a form of safety glass. The underlying glass will still shatter, but it the window remains as a barrier in the window frame. A cheaper alternative is to replace the ordinary glass with shatter resistant Plexiglas®.
Finally, you can consider adding a true barrier, like steel bars or an ornamental grate; however, you must make sure that you do not compromise your own safety in case of a fire. Make sure that any window you might need as a fire exit remains functional if you need it.
Another way of strengthening your home’s external security is to invest in an alarm system. Although the alarm itself will not defeat a criminal’s attempts to get into your home, it will serve to warn you, your neighbors, the alarm company, and the police of any attempts to enter. A good, professional alarm system installer will do a critical analysis of your home and recommend the types of sensors most appropriate for your situation. Although the expense of installing such a system is significant, remember that you’ll get some of that back every year in the form of a discount on your home insurance.
If you really cannot afford to invest in an alarm system, get the next best thing: a dog. Dogs make great “natural” alarm systems and can be a powerful deterrent to potential burglars or home invaders. Make sure you “announce” the presence of your dog with an appropriate “Beware of Dog” sign on your fence, and a water dish and a few dog toys in your yard.
If investing in an alarm system and/or a dog simply will not work for you, do the next best thing: create the impression that you made that investment. Get the sign, dog toys, and bowl and leave them where they’re visible. Buy signs and window decals from an alarm company and put them up to make people think you have an alarm. Perception is reality, so create the perception that your home IS a hard target.
One very important home defense tactic that is every bit as effective as an alarm system is getting to know your neighbors. By simply making the effort to introduce yourself to your neighbors, you can potentially form a strong home-defense alliance. Let them know that you would appreciate them keeping an eye on your home and that you,as a good neighbor, will do the same for them. Give them your contact information and encourage them to let you know if they see anything unusual around your house. Also, let them know that if anything ever happens to them, they should come to you for help and a safe haven. They will almost certainly extend the same offer to you.
If you have a Neighborhood Watch in your area, join it and participate actively so you know what’s happening around you. If you don’t, start your own or at least create a functional substitute in your immediate area. There is power in numbers.
Making and Following Rules:
Home invasions typically happen in one of two ways: The invader either breaks in by defeating the physical security of your home or you “allow” him to enter by having inadequate security or falling victim to a ruse. Increasing the physical security of your home is a big step toward keeping yourself and your family safe. However, no physical barrier will work if it’s not used properly. Therefore, the second step toward keeping your family safe at home is to establish a clear set of security rules and to make sure that you follow them religiously.
One of the simplest—yet most often violated—rules is to simply lock your doors and windows. Many home invasions and burglaries could be prevented by just using the existing physical security measures properly. Although at first this may seem inconvenient, with a little practice and diligence, good security habits become second nature. And compared to the guilt of “allowing” someone to invade your home by leaving your guard down, such habits are worth their weight in gold.
Another way of letting your guard down is to fall victim to a ruse of some sort. Opening your door for anybody can leave you vulnerable to a forceful home invasion, so don’t do it. Remember, you have NO obligation to open your door for anyone. If you can’t just ignore them, tell them through the locked door to leave information for whatever they are peddling at your door or in your mailbox. Also, don’t be tempted to get that information right away, since they might still be lurking outside. Get it later, on your terms, when you feel safe.
In case you’re wondering about door chains and the sliding bars that allow you to open the door “just a bit” to talk to someone, don’t waste your money—or your confidence—on them. Once you unlock your dead bolt, you’re vulnerable. At that point an angry 12-year-old could kick the door hard enough to break the security chain. Don’t trust them and don’t get in the habit of using them.
One final, yet very important, rule of home defense is to never discuss your home security plans with anyone outside your family. This includes sharing keys, security codes, or any knowledge concerning your plans or tactics with any person outside your family. You never know who could repeat such information or potentially use it against you.
Make security rules and stick to them.
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