How to Get Your Home Ready for an Open House: Security Edition

Holding an open house is an act of faith. You clean, declutter, and prepare your home to look its best, hoping at least one of the visitors will fall in love enough to make an offer, preferably all-cash. At the same time, open houses are invitations to strangers to walk among your most prized possessions, often with only a single real estate agent present—and so there are very real security concerns, for agents and homeowners alike.

At least 40% of the agents surveyed by the National Association of Realtors® for its 2015 Member Safety Report say they have experienced a situation that made them fear for their personal safety: Vacant houses, model homes, properties in remote areas, and open houses all caused trepidation. The study found that many now carry weapons for self-defense—no wonder when agents have been killed in the past.

For homeowners, however, self-defense takes place long before strangers show up at the door—and start looking in the refrigerator, the cabinets, the pantry. (A Maryland woman recently went to jail for stealing jewelry from open houses.) You probably know to lock up or take away valuables, but here are a few more things to remember:

Say ‘No’ to drugs

Remove all prescription drugs from your medicine cabinet, even the ones you think are harmless. There are so many tales of open house visitors rifling through medicine cabinets and taking a few pills, or even whole bottles. In comments on our site, a user calling himself Larry Kean described this very thing, saying people are looking for “abusable” drugs. Likewise, another user, Rose Eneri, wrote that her friend “found a guy looking through her medicine cabinet” at an open house: “Easy pickings for a drug addict or dealer.”

Control your remotes

Most people don’t think about the extra garage remote they leave dangling from a hook near the back door. It’s small and easy to slip into a pocket, so take it with you when you leave for the open house. One commenter wrote that an open house visitor may have taken the garage remote, then returned later to steal the homeowner’s Lexus! All keys, remotes, and fobs should either be locked away or in your pocket.

File this under ‘Lock & Key’

There’s a trend in home office decor to make file cabinets pretty and portable—but portability and security are not always compatible. Buy a heavy, nonrolling commercial-grade filing cabinet that locks—and into it put your important documents: birth and marriage certificates, financial statements, basically any legal, medical, or personal information you wouldn’t want falling into someone else’s hands. Identity theft is real and should be taken seriously.

What about my 50-inch flat-screen?

While it’s unlikely that anyone could walk out of your open house with your TV or other large electronics, they could come back for it. That’s why the next item is so important:

It ain’t over till you check your doors & windows

While agents will go through to make sure all lights are off and the house is in good condition after an open house, they might not check the doors. Unscrupulous people have been known to unlock a window or basement door with the thought of returning later. After the open house, walk through your house and check every window (even on the second floor), gate, and door to be certain that they’re all locked.

Reposted from:  http://www.realtor.com/advice/open-house-security-homeowners/

Home Security

While it's difficult to protect your home from professional thieves, most home burglaries are done by amateurs. These thieves are more easily thwarted if you employ some of these simple security precautions:

• Plan to "burglarize" yourself. You'll discover any weaknesses in your security system that may have previously escaped your notice.
  
• Lock up your home, even if you go out only for a short time. Many burglars just walk in through an unlocked door or window.
  
• Change all the locks and tumblers when you move into a new house.
  
• For the most effective alarm system, conceal all wiring. A professional burglar looks for places where he or she can disconnect the security system.
  
• Your house should appear occupied at all times. Use timers to switch lights and radios on and off when you're not at home.
  
• If you have a faulty alarm that frequently goes off, get it fixed immediately and tell your neighbors that it's been repaired. Many people ignore an alarm that goes off periodically.
  
• A spring-latch lock is easy prey for burglars who are "loiding" experts. Loiding is the method of slipping a plastic credit card against the latch tongue to depress it and unlock the door. A deadbolt defies any such attack. It is only vulnerable when there is enough space between the door and its frame to allow an intruder to use power tools or a hacksaw.
  
• If you lose your keys, change the locks immediately.
  
• Before turning your house key over to a professional house cleaner for several hours, make sure the person is honest and reputable as well as hardworking. Check all references thoroughly. If the house cleaner is from a firm, call your local Better Business Bureau to check on the firm's reputation.
  
• Instead of keeping a spare key in a mailbox, under the doormat, or on a nail behind the garage, wrap the key in foil -- or put it in a 35mm film can -- and bury it where you can easily find it if you need it.
  
• Don't leave notes for service people or family members on the door. These act as a welcome mat for a burglar.
  
• If the entrances to your home are dark, consider installing lighting with an infrared detector. Most thieves don't want to be observed trying to get in a door.
  
• Talk to your neighbors about any suspicious people or strange cars you notice lurking about.
• To keep your tools from being stolen, paint the handles. Thieves avoid items that are easy to identify.
  
• Trees located near windows or shrubbery that might shield a burglar from view can be major flaws in your home-protection plan. Consider your landscaping plan in light of your protection needs.
  
• Ask for credentials from any sales-person who requests entry to your home. Ask that their ID be pushed under the door. Many professional burglars use this cover to check out homes. If you're doubtful, check with the person's office before letting him or her in.
  
• Do not list your full name on your mailbox or your entry in the telephone book. Use only your initial and your last name.
  
• If someone comes to your door asking to use the phone to call a mechanic or the police, keep the door locked and make the call yourself.
  
• Dogs are good deterrents to burglars. Even a small, noisy dog can be effective -- burglars do not like to have attention drawn to their presence. Be aware, however, that trained guard dogs do not make good pets. Obedience training and attack training are entirely different, and only the former is appropriate for a house pet.

Securing Doors

• To help burglar-proof your home, install 1-inch throw deadbolt locks on all exterior doors.
  
• A door with too much space between the door and the frame is an invitation for the burglar to use a jimmy. Reinforce the door with a panel of 3/4-inch plywood or a piece of sheet metal.
  
• If there are door hinges on the outside of your house, take down the door and reset the hinges inside. Otherwise all a thief has to do to gain entry to your home is knock out the hinge pin.
  
• You can burglar-proof your glass patio doors by setting a pipe or metal bar in the middle bottom track of the door slide. The pipe should be the same length as the track.

• It's easy for a burglar to pry through rot. Replace rotted door frames with new, solid wood.
  
• It's simple for a thief to break glass panels and then reach in and open a doorknob from the inside. A door with glass panels should be either fortified, replaced, or secured with deadbolts that can only be opened with a key.

Securing Windows

• Protect your windows with one or more good locks, an alarm system, burglar-resistant glass, or many small panes instead of one large area of glass.
  
• When installing a window lock, drip some solder on the screw heads. It will stop a burglar from unscrewing the lock after cutting a small hole in the windowpane.

In the next section, we'll focus on the special steps to take to keep your home secure while you're away.

Garage Security Garages present special challenges for security. Here are some tips for keeping your garage secure.

• If you frost or cover your garage windows, burglars won't be able to tell if your car is gone.
  
• Keep your garage door closed and locked even when your car is not in the garage.
  
• Install a peephole in the door separating the house from the garage. If you hear suspicious sounds, you can check without opening the door.
  
• Are you worried about someone entering your house through your attached garage? If the garage door lifts on a track, a C-clamp can provide extra security since the door cannot be opened if you tighten the C-clamp on the track next to the roller.