Years ago I learned a few things about surveillance due to my line of work. Admittedly, wireless surveillance cameras for home security were sci-fi future stuff back then, but the important thing is that I came away with a healthy respect for security and some common sense home security advice applicable to every day life. I’m going to deviate from the norm a bit today. We won’t be covering wireless cameras, network cameras or nanny cameras. Instead, I want to focus on home security.
My first real lesson in home security was the worst kind. Actually, I take that back. It was the best kind because, as lessons go, the hardest ones stick and this was a hard one. It the first day of my high school sophomore year. You can imagine I wasn’t particularly thrilled to be getting up to walk to the bus stop. A quick shower, a change into some suitably conforming close I felt were rebellious at the time, and downstairs I went for some cereal.
The first thing I noticed was the little black and white TV my father kept in the kitchen was gone. And by gone, I don’t mean delicately moved to another location. I mean there was a conspicuous absence where the TV used to be and nothing new in its place. I hollered up to my father to ask if he’d moved the TV and he yelled back down asking what the hell I was talking about. Dad was never much of a morning person but he wasn’t on his way to his first day of school so I didn’t feel much like catering to his grumpiness and just yelled the same question back up the stairs. “No” was the reply.
“Well, in that case, we’ve been robbed.”
Ok, technically we hadn’t been robbed which is defined as larceny by force or violence. We’d been burglarized. But the end result was largely the same. My father stormed down the stairs with all his morning rage directed at me for, heck, I don’t know… perhaps for just being the convenient target at hand. When he too saw the TV missing, he asked what kind of prank I was pulling and warned that he was in no mood for it. It was the sincere indifference on my face, the kind of expression only a rebellious teenager can pull off, that convinced him I had nothing to do with the missing TV. A short investigation of the rest of the home quickly revealed the truth. We had, indeed, been burglarized.
Missing from the house were several other TVs, silverware, stereo equipment and other valuables. Also stolen were our dignity and our false sense of security. Spared were our lives. After all, this crime occurred with us in the house. But from this, we learned some lessons, some good, some not so good.
The first thing my father did after finishing with the police was not to run out and buy a wireless surveillance camera, though that would be a convenient result for this blog. Unfortunately, the technology didn’t exist back then. No, he bought a shotgun. He’d served in the military and knew how to handle firearms, but he was an intelligence guy, not a battle-hardened grunt. To this day, I find myself questioning what would have happened had he confronted a criminal. Would he have had the nerve to pull the trigger? Besides, the value of a weapon is largely offset when you’re talking about burglars who were stealthy enough to commit the entire crime with neither of us aware they were in the house.
Though home security concerns often prompt homeowners to consider weapons for self protection, having a gun handy means little. Most people killed by guns in burglaries are killed by their own guns. Homeowners often fail to take any safety courses or firearm training. My father committed the ultimate sin by not even taking the time to educate his son on the correct use and very real danger of this thing. Then there’s the matter of legality. Having a criminal in your home does not give you the right to take a life. Yes, I know the old saying, better to be tried by 12 than carried by 6 (a reference to juries versus coffins) but are you really willing to risk spending years in prison over a few possessions you should have insured anyway? Absent a clear physical threat to you (the bad guy, wielding a butcher knife, backed you into a corner) firing a shot at an unarmed man makes you a criminal too.
Aside from the gun, we did do a few things right. The burglars gained access to our house through the front kitchen window. They were able to do so despite it facing a well-lit street. How? Because we committed the sin of valuing our privacy. Fronting our kitchen window was a large shrub. The crooks only needed bend their knees slightly while prying the window to be all but invisible to any passing cars.
In addition to the shrub, our porch light was turned off. My father came from modest beginnings and the idea of a burning light that wasn’t (it seemed) providing any functional purpose was like holy water to vampires to him. You know the guy, “what are you doing, trying to light the whole neighborhood?!” That, along with the recurring reminder that money didn’t grow on trees, was an old regular in our home. A brightly lit porch might have served as at least some discouragement.
Finally there was nothing to really deter a criminal from trying our home or, at the very least, considering easier options. There were no “protected by” signs out front. There was no mean dog sleeping in the kitchen. There were no motion-detecting lights, inexpensive fake security camera, locking window latches or any of a dozen crime-deterring options available to you today.
Ultimately, many of our stolen items were recovered. The crooks got greedy and hit one too many houses, resulting in their being caught. But not before they managed to sell some of their haul. What wasn’t recovered was replaced by our insurance company. My hope is that there is a lesson in this for you.
If you are in the market for a wireless security camera, that’s great. I’m a fan of the technology and I love the idea of crooks getting caught red handed thanks to wireless surveillance cameras. But before they even set foot in your home, at which point the risk to you, your family and your property increases exponentially, wouldn’t it make sense to have enough “soft” security on and about your property to discourage the attempt?
So as you gaze around your home looking for a good place for a wireless camera, take the time to also look for vulnerabilities and solutions. I’m not saying invest in a complete home security system complete with alarms and a slavering Doberman (though that’d be great too). But there are relatively inexpensive precautions you can take. Trim back any greenery that a criminal can use for cover while breaking in. Install motion detecting flood lights covering all exposed areas of your house. Consider do-it-yourself security alarms. Unlike the serviced models, these won’t call the police when there’s a break-in but they will blare an alarm to warn you and your neighbors. Place visible signs advising that “this home is protected by….”
You shouldn’t try to turn your home into a fortress. Bars on the window and other options carry their own risks and will turn your house into as much of prison as a castle. But your end all objective is to make your home less appealing than neighboring houses. I know, that sounds cruel. It’s like you and your friend trying to outrun a lion and you thinking, I don’t have to outrun the lion, I just have to outrun my friend. But if your neighbors have any sense about them, they’ll upgrade their security as well, leaving the potential criminals to opt for a different neighborhood entirely.
So there we go; a post not about wireless surveillance cameras but about everyday considerations we often overlook in our home security endeavors. Our next post will, again, deviate from the technology and focus on personal security.