Don’t Let Your House Look Like You’re Away
A busy holiday schedule may mean that you are away from home more often than you might normally be, and a vacant house can easily make you a target for burglars or vandals. Whether you are gone for a couple days, just overnight, or for a few hours, there are steps you can take to make sure that you don’t call attention to your absence.
An overflowing mailbox is often a sign of a vacant house. Since this is the time of year when the volume of mail is much greater than typical, it won’t take much to fill your mailbox. So pick up your mail regularly.
If you’re going to be gone for a few days, you can arrange to have your mail held. It can be held for as few as three days, and as long as 30 days. Pick up a form at your local post office, or use the online hold service. (The online service isn’t available everywhere, but you can enter your zip code and see if the service is offered in your neighborhood.)
If there is a stack of paper on your doorstep, you might as well have a neon sign flashing telling everyone that you are not at home. If you’ll be gone for a couple of days, stop your delivery service. This can usually be done online, or by phone, through your newspaper office, and you can specify a stop date and a resume date.
Unfortunately, just controlling your delivery systems isn’t enough. You also have to battle those “free” paper, flyers, and circulars that are left on your doorstep, tossed onto your lawn, or slipped through your door.
Since there doesn’t seem to be any way to stop the proliferation of these items, I pay a neighbor kid to keep my house and yard free of those annoyances. It’s money well spent, in my opinion, and since I travel all the time, I look at it as a good investment in home security as well as keeping in the good graces of the kids in the neighborhood. And that’s a win-win in my book!
Photo credit: flickr
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1 opinion for Don’t Let Your House Look Like You’re Away
Astroprof
Nov 25, 2006 at 12:55 pm
You can also buy a couple of those timers that turn lamps on and off at set times to make it look like someone’s home. No lights are a sign that nobody’s home, but so is a light that never goes out.
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