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Away for the holidays? Keep your home safe

If you’re heading out of town for the holidays, it’s important to keep your home safe and secure while you’re away. Unfortunately, burglaries see an increase during this time of year, so before you leave, here’s what you can do to outsmart potential burglars:

  • Strengthen entry points: look at your home from the point of view of a burglar, are there any doors that have rusted locks, or windows that would be easy to crack? Strengthen any of your entry points that need an upgrade, those will only make for easy access spots otherwise.
  • Make your home look occupied: arrange to have a neighbour or someone you trust shovel your walkway, and keep any landscaping issues under control. An overflow of snow in your driveway will be a clear indication to robbers that nobody is home.
  • Inventory your valuables: you should already have an itemized list of your valuables for insurance purposes, but if you don’t, ensure you have a list before you leave in the unfortunate incident that you are robbed. Having an accurate list of valuables will really help your investigation and insurance claims as well.
  • Stop your mail services: put your mail delivery and newspaper, etc. deliveries on hold while you are away. Nothing signals a burglar you are away like a pile of unopened mail on your front door.
  • Light up your home: keep a couple lights on in your home while you are away to signal that someone is home. If you don’t like the idea of wastage, ask some trusted neighbours to come over once a day and turn them on for a bit.
  • Be wary what you post online: careful what you share on social media sites if you are going away, letting the world know you are going to be out of town makes burglars’ jobs very easy.

Have any other holiday home security tips we’ve missed? Share them with us on Twitter!