Oksecurityguy's Blog

Here is the 3rd Issue explaining how to make the exterior of your home more secure.

Please review the past 2 issues, so you know what you will need while you are walking around your home.

Time to make sure your sliding doors are secure.

• Sometimes sliding glass doors are installed incorrectly. Because the doors are designed to be removed from the inside for maintenance, if the door is installed backwards, that means the door can be removed from the outside instead of the inside. Make sure it is installed correctly and the sliding part is on the inside of the house.
• As doors age, the rollers and the locks wear. If they are worn, they can be pried open much easier. Check to make sure the door doesn’t have much play in the track and also the lock is as secure as it was when it was new.
• No matter how secure a sliding glass door is, their locks are not as strong as a conventional door’s locks. Because of this, you need to make sure at the very least there is a rod in the track to prevent the door from being opened whether the lock isn’t working properly or isn’t in the locked position. The bar needs to be snug fitting. A better solution is to install a professionally designed sliding glass door Jamb Bar. Another solution is to use track locks. You should be able to find professional sliding glass door locking devices in a hardware store.

• Since sliding glass doors are mostly just big plates of glass, they can be broken and give a big entryway for a thief. You should have a burglar alarm and there should be a Glass Break device positioned in front of the sliding glass door.

Let’s look at your shrubs.

• If used as a security device, your home’s shrubs can be a great way to make it more difficult for thieves. If not maintained, shrubs can be your worse enemy.
• Make sure trees are cut back so someone can’t access upstairs windows easily.
• Make sure shrubs are trimmed so they don’t provide cover for a thief.
• Plant shrubs with thorns near windows. Your goal is to make it as difficult for the bad guys to hide around your home and to gain entry into your home.

Next month I will try to finish the outside and move on to the inside.

It is time to get serious about your home’s safety and look for security weaknesses around your home.

Walk around your home and use a checklist that includes the items below.

Start at your front door and go around your home clockwise. You will need a pad, pen and a friend to do your walk. You need to look at everything on the outside of your home and property. I am going to list things you need to review for each feature of your home. Because each home is different, no list can be complete. I have created the list below from different checklists that were created by Police Departments around the country. Use your imagination as you look, so you can find all of your property’s weaknesses. Let’s start with the doors.

• Does the door have glass in it or glass near it? If it isn’t safety glass, install safety glass film on the windows. The film will slow down a robber because the glass won’t shatter and leave a big whole through which the thief can enter.
• Is the door snug in the frame. The door needs to fit tight to the frame for strength.
• Do you have a deadbolt on your home’s outside doors? Make sure the door’s deadbold has at least a 1″ throw with a strong plate and 3″ screws to add strength. You can also make the frame stronger by putting metal along the frame behind the door molding.
• The door also needs to be solid. If your door doesn’t provide the protection you need, either strengthen it yourself or hire someone who is a professional.

• If you have children, you need to make it impossible for someone to know where they are in your home. If the room is a child’s room, can you tell it is a child’s room from the outside? Remove anything that gives it away.
• Can you see children’s drapes? Put shades to block the view of the drapes
• Are there any fire stickers on the windows? Remove them because they tell the bad guys where your children are.
• Are your windows secure and locked? Always keep them locked if possible.
• To add safety to your windows, you should install either window pins or double head nails, so part of the nail sticks out to keep the window passing above the nail. If the thief can’t open the window enough to crawl through, they will be forced to look for another entrance or break the window and make a lot of noise.

In the coming months we will cover sliding glass doors, shrubs and the general safety of your home’s exterior.