Upgrade Home Security with Flood and Temperature Alerts

When you buy home security, consider a national company that offers brand-name products and warranties. Expect to have your system for years. You want to choose a company that will provide the service and upgrades you need.

National companies also are likely to offer the latest innovations and accessories in home security. Services by home security companies have broadened significantly. Protection is no longer just about hooking up to a burglary alarm.

Look for these other product innovations:

• Flood sensors that use wireless technology to detect leaks and flooding in your home before it becomes a crisis.
• Medical panic pendants that can be worn around the neck and summon help with a single push of the button.
• Low-temperature sensors that alert a monitoring facility when your home drops to chilly levels that can burst pipes.
• Monitored carbon monoxide detectors that notify 24-hour responders when levels are dangerous.

Wireless Security Offers an Array of Products

Think "wireless" when shopping for new home security. Wireless security is not only more affordable and convenient, it also allows for a greater array of easy-to-use products that are reliable.

Check out this shopping list of wireless products that consumers can choose from to create or customize a wireless security package that meets their family's needs for whole-home protection.

• Window and door sensors.
• Glass break detectors.
• Security cameras.
• Receivers and transmitters.
• Driveway alarms.
• Medical alerts.
• Motion detectors.
• Smoke alarms.
• Temperature alarms.
• Flood alarms.
• Door chime.
• Nanny cam.

Where to hide your valuables

One of the best place to hide your valuables is in plain sight!

The Chicago Crime Commission states that a burglar spends an average of 8 minutes in the victims home. One of the easiest ways to thwart them is to hide your valuables in ordinary containers, kept in their usual places.

Companies buy the rights to adapt the real, unused cans to hold anything that you want to kide in plain site. Pledge furniture wax, Ajax cleanser, Campbell´s soup, or perhaps best of all Desenex jock itch spray! Who is going to bother that can in your medicine cabinet, towel cabinet or traveling suitcase?

Drink cans are a popular alternative. They are actually weighted to feel full and you can usually choose from great brands like 7-UP, Brisk Lipton Tea, A&W Rootbeer or Miller Beer.

These diversion safes are a unique home-security product. They come in a wide variety of personal care, household products and food containers with removable, swrew-on tops and bottoms. Valuables can be discreetly stored inside these look-a-like containers and kept in their seemingly rightful places. Each is undistinguishable from the genuine product.

Surviving Home Invasions

In past instances of home invasions, criminals have intimidated people into giving the security monitoring company the password to cancel an alarm. An intruder would not normally know what your password is, however, so giving the wrong one would force the alarm company to dispatch the police.

A home invasion can be a frightening ordeal and is the perfect reason for protecting your home with a security system. The best defense and first place to start is always a good alarm. If a criminal manages to get into your house anyway, there are things you can do to protect yourself as much as possible.

Here are a few tips.

• Get to the security panic button on your command station or use a portable one if you have it and sound the alarm.
• If your phone and security system include voice dialing, use the speaker-phone to call 911
• Come up with a false password in advance to let the monitoring company know you are under duress.
• Do not try and stop an intruder from taking money or property (your safety is more important than possessions or cash)
• Set up signals over the phone with family and friends so when they call you can let them know you are in trouble without alerting the intruder.

Timing Is Everything

Outdoor cameras and lights are important parts of home automated security systems, but they do not need to be on 24 hours a day. Manually turning each component on every day can be an inconvenience, but luckily there are ways around this problem.

By setting these devices on automated timers or motion detectors, your cameras and lights will turn on when they are needed without you having to do it yourself. Choose the timer option and your outdoor security components will turn on at the same time each day no matter what.

If you go with motion detectors, your lights and cameras will turn on whenever movement is detected within the perimeter of your wireless security system.

Since equipment based on motion sensors will only turn on when there is movement in a protected zone, you may not notice malfunctions or problems with equipment right away. That is why it is important to test these devices once a week to make sure that they are in working order and will turn on when they are supposed to. The last thing you want is for them to fail when you need them the most.

Whether you use timers or motion sensors, both your home security and convenience are maximized while your house’s vulnerability fades away.

Suspicious Activity In The Neighborhood

Let other people in your neighborhood know whenever you see a stranger acting suspicious, and ask them to do the same. If there is someone you do not recognize hanging around a house in the area or talking to local children, communicating with your neighbors may prevent a crime.

By informing each other of things that seem out of the ordinary you can help each other to protect the community. Being aware of what goes on around you makes it easier to keep the safety of you and your family a priority. If neighbors are also concerned for the welfare of one another your home security is stronger.

Here are a few things to keep in mind.

• Keep in regular contact with neighbors, and not just the ones next door
• Ask them to check in on your children if you are not home and offer to do the same for them.
• Share any neighborhood concerns you have with them so you can come up with ways to create a safe community for your families.

Spare Me ... A Key

Everyone has one of those days where the brain and body seem to be detached and you lose your keys or lock them inside your car. It happens. Some people hide a spare key outside their house somewhere, but this leaves the possibility of the wrong person finding it.

The best thing to do is give a spare key to a trusted neighbor or member of the local neighborhood watch. It is better to leave a key to your home in a secured place like a neighbor’s house rather than under a welcome mat in front of your door … unless you want a burglar to feel welcome.

Another option would be to leave an extra key inside your car. Assuming you are not locked out of your car as well, you can grab the key from the glove compartment and go right in. This eliminates the possibility of someone finding your key in an unsecured location and using it to enter your house and clean you out.

Whichever route you take, getting to know your neighbors and being comfortable with leaving them a spare can help avoid a lot of headaches. Everything from losing your keys to emergency situations when you need them to get into your house can be made much easier.

Your Street Is A Cop's Beat

Getting to know your local police officers patrolling the neighborhood is another great way to improve your home security. By having a good relationship with these officers you can communicate concerns with law enforcement more effectively.

As someone peace officers recognize rather than just another face in the neighborhood, your family and home will become more noticeable to them. This means that they might be more attuned to irregular activity around your home.

Let them get to know your children as well (what school they go to, their ages, who their friends in the neighborhood are, etc.). Anything you can do to improve child safety inside and outside your home important.

In the case of an alarm being triggered at your house, the police knowing who you are and where your house is exactly can cut down on response time. This improves the chances of a burglar being caught or a family member being rescued from a fire or other incident.

When a criminal sees that the community has a good relationship with the police department warning signals go off in their heads. A neighborhood watch and community members with strong ties to the local police, plus home security systems, equals a bad ending for burglars … and they know it.

The Sign Says: Neighborhood Watch!

As new people move into your area it is important to let them know there is a neighborhood crime watch. It is important to make this fact known to criminals as well.

By posting signs and fliers throughout the community you can attract new people to join the group and increase visibility. Burglars passing through often keep on moving when they see that such a group exists.

Post these neighborhood watch signs and fliers in highly visible areas where both residents and burglars alike can see them. Here are some key places to post them.

• Church and recreation center bulletin boards
• Local grocery stores
• Outside local schools and daycare centers
• On telephone poles in major town intersections
• Outside the local Post Office
• In community shopping centers and restaurants
• At the local police station

Make sure to include helpful information on these signs like emergency phone numbers and contact information. If your watch group has a Web site include the address. Also include upcoming meetings along with time and location so interested parties can attend and get more information.

Sound The Alarm!

If a burglar tries to break into your apartment you want everyone to know it. You want a siren so loud the thief cannot think straight; one that gets the attention of everyone in the area so they know someone is committing a crime.

Protect America offers alarm sirens that will make a burglar turn on his or her heels and run like the wind. Devices like the X10 Powerhorn Siren can reach 105 db. They can be plugged in anywhere in your apartment and work through your existing home wiring.

The siren responds to an alert signal sent from your home alarm system Command Station and makes a sound no burglar is going to stick around and listen to.

The point of home security alarms is to make criminals uncomfortable. If they are uncomfortable when they come to your door they will not stay. In your home you want an alarm that does not just notify the alarm company, but one that notifies everyone within earshot and scares the intruder into leaving before they get the chance to take anything.

The noise won’t bother your neighbors when they realize that burglar won’t be coming back to the building again. Protecting your own home improves the apartment building security across the board.

Strong Door Locks

Your average apartment complex, especially older buildings, generally do not use the best door locks right off the bat. Adding a newer and stronger lock is a great way to compliment your home security system, but it is never a substitute for an alarm.

If the door to your apartment is splintered, damaged or just not up to snuff, talk to your landlord about getting it repaired or replaced. The idea is to place as many barriers (locks, doors, alarm systems, etc.) as possible between your home and would-be burglars.

A steel-reinforced door lock will not do much good if the door itself falls apart like Mr. Potato Head at the sight of a bag of Lays. There are many different options when shopping for a new lock, including deadbolts that require a key to lock and unlock on both sides of the door.

If you are not sure what the best option is for you, ask your alarm company what they recommend to compliment your alarm and increase renter’s security. And always make sure to let your landlord know what you plan to install just so there are no problems later on.