Holding down the Fort when you’re on Holiday

As someone that’s been living in Florida for well over a decade I’ve decided that I’m going the opposite route this holiday season and will be heading up North to see family and friends. I’m trading the tropic breeze, sunny beaches, and warm air for chilly snow storms, shivering outings, and a handful of outdoor activities I haven’t tried since I was a boy.

Sounds crazy, right? Who would want to trade off that?!

It’s not the drastic shift in weather than I’m worried about. It’s leaving behind my place since I plan on having an extended holiday. So I did my research on holding down the fort and figured it would be worth creating a post about the topic if you, too, plan on taking a vacation this holiday season.

1.Up Your Security

Latching the windows and turning the padlock may be good and all if you’re off for work but when you’re heading out for an extended period of time you’ll really want to take into consideration the fact that you home becomes an easy target for burglary and other disasters.

I live around the Kissimmee area so naturally I hopped on Google and found my way onto a Kissimmee Florida ADT website that listed out the services (ADT monitoring, security cameras, web access for remote monitoring, and others). I picked up the phone, talked with a rep, and got everything in motion to make sure the security side of my home would be covered before leaving.

When others see newspapers piling up, lights never turning on, yards starting to overgrow, and mailboxes getting full there is an obvious indication you’re not there, which means easy money for burglars – but not so much if you have a solid security system in place.

2.Trust a Neighbor

You have to really trust a neighbor in this regard, else talk with a family member or close friend that’s in the area who can come around once or twice a week to make sure everything is fine at your home.

Some of the things they should look for may be:

• Damage to the home (which may have been caused by storms)
• Vandalism
• Odd smells (such as if a gas line may have been leaking)

Ask if your neighbor, family member, or friend could come by and pick up those newspapers, take the trash out (even if it’s empty), and just make it look like someone is still around the place.

It’s also important that you don’t blast your adventures on Facebook freely (and the same should be said for the neighbors) because you never know who may be reading those statuses and seeing them as an opportunity to swing by and loot.

3.Get Technical & Logical

Consider investing in a few tech products that may help you monitor your home while you’re out on vacation.

Items may include:

• A program for your computer so you could remote log-in to your desktop while away to access any important files you may have forgotten
• WiFi enabled lighting so you can setup timers and turn on lights from the touch of your smart phone app or computer program to give it an illusion someone is active inside
• Additional security cameras you can connect to through your computer to keep an eye on what’s happening outside and inside your home
• Motion sensors for lights outside your home

For the low-fi way of keeping things safe you should consider:

• Remove some of the expensive lawn items inside the house or in the shed (for obvious reasons)
• Don’t leave that extra key laying around
• Reinforce the doors and windows with additional latches
• Don’t forget to unplug non-essentials (to cut down on fire risks)

You get the gist of it all, right?

You’re all excited to go out and have a blast while you’re on your holiday vacation but don’t skip over the security because the last thing you want is to come home to a disaster. Take some of these items into consideration and you’ll be celebrating with peace of mind.