How To Avoid Inviting Trouble Inside Your Home
While home security deals predominantly with protecting your dwelling from burglars, trouble can often walk right up your front steps and ring the doorbell. Here's a few "common sense" tips to help keep door-to-door criminals and con artists at bay:
1. Use a peephole-viewing device or a chain lock and rubber doorstop to check out visitors at your door.
2. Don't let anyone into your home unless you either know them personally, or they have properly identified themselves and their reasons for calling on you.
3. Check a stranger's credentials thoroughly, and don't assume a uniform or identification card is legitimate; if there's any question, ask to verify the caller's status with his or her employer.
4. If a salesperson makes a prior appointment by telephone to pay you a visit, always check with his or her company beforehand to verify employment.
5. Be wary of anyone who claims to be a building or fire inspector, they may be inspecting the premises for valuables, not hazards.
6. Do not keep a great deal of cash at home, and keep your checkbook, purse and/or wallet locked away for safe keeping.
7. Beware of phone solicitors or other callers who want to make an appointment to see you away from your home, or offer you free tickets to theatrical or sporting events, this may be nothing more than a ploy to get you out of the house to facilitate a robbery.
8. Don't give out any Personal information to strangers who phone you under any circumstances; especially don't share details of your comings and goings, credit-card numbers, friends and associates, and so on.
9. If you have a telephone answering machine, never leave details on your outgoing message regarding when you'll be away from home or when you'll return; to avoid providing a schedule for would-be burglars, simply say you "can't come to the phone right now," or say you're "not available."
10. Hang up immediately on obscene or nuisance callers, and report repeat calls to the police; if it's available in your area, the "Caller-ID" phone service can identify most callers by name and/or number before you pick up the receiver.
11. If a thief forces his or her way into your home, cooperate fully and don't try to be a hero; contact the police immediately after-ward and be prepared to give a full description of the perpetrator.
