I recently moved to a new town and am living alone. The neighborhood is decent and my building has security too. However, it just seems like good sense to me to implement an extra layer of home security apart from the usual (locked doors).<p>I was looking for ideas and was wondering how people on this forum go about securing their houses?
I live in South Africa in a gated community with 24/7 guard patrols and 12 ft high barbed wire fences.<p>My own house also has blade-topped fences, I have an electronic gate which requires a 6-pin entry pad and a thumbprint. I have 3 dogs, double-plated steel doors and retractable window bars.<p>Some fucker broke in through the ceiling last week while I was asleep and stole my iPhone and wallet.<p>The reason we do this in South Africa is because of safety. Home invasions, car jacking, mugging, kidnapping are everyday occurrences here. I know of 3 people who have been killed during one of these engagements and everyone I know knows someone who has died.<p>If you worry about your kids wandering the streets in America, Canada, New Zealand.. Come to Africa and get some context.<p>Possessions are meaningless, your health and your friends are what counts. That's something some people learn the hard way in this country.
Here's how it's done in Italy:<p>* Big, heavy solid doors. These things are bulletproof. It's a bit ridiculous, because I think smashing down the front door is probably not the most common burglary technique, but still, here you won't find any of those doors with the doorknob right next to a big plate of glass.<p>* Serious shutters. They're called 'rolling shutters' in English, and standard on houses here. <a href="http://www.topsystem.biz/wp-content/gallery/tapparelle/pvc4.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://www.topsystem.biz/wp-content/gallery/tapparelle/pvc4....</a> - these are not the wimpy 'venetian' blinds in the US, but sturdy things that will keep out the sun in the summer, cold in the winter, and when locked at the bottom, anyone but the most determined intruder, who would still likely need some good tools and time to boot. I wrote this a few years back: <a href="http://blog.therealitaly.com/2007/08/09/window-technology/" rel="nofollow">http://blog.therealitaly.com/2007/08/09/window-technology/</a>
I don't. I own nothing I would cry over if I lost it. My wife doesn't own expensive jewelry, all our money is in the bank, and all my work is backed up to external servers, so losing the laptops would only cause me some delay. We are not attached to any object that we own, and we only lock the door for our own protection. If someone wants to burglarize my home, all I ask is that they wait until we're not home to do it.
We have two dogs. By far the best deterrent that you can get. The alarm goes off when someone <i>approaches</i> the house, let alone tries to open anything. You can't sneak up on them. They're also furry and warm, which is a plus.<p>One thing to note is that burglars don't fixate on a house or apartment. They are looking for the easiest, lowest-risk house. Dogs immediately upgrade your house to "harder than the next house over."<p>I'm not worried at all about someone breaking into our house while I'm away. They can have my shit. I'm much more concerned about someone trying to invade while I'm home, because that's what gets people perforated. Dogs are an immediate deterrent to that.<p>Other than that, we have a couple guns from when my girlfriend worked at a prison and had psychos threatening her life on a daily basis. She keeps a taser in her center console of her car, I keep a heavy tire iron in the door of mine. That's about it.
My home security setup:<p>- Dogs. Obviously this won't work for everyone, as you may not like dogs or be allowed to have them or able to afford them. Also not all dogs will be effective alarms; one of mine starts growling if she hears a butterfly down the street, while the other one would unlock the door for a burglar if she could, just hoping he'd pet her.<p>- Lighting on all points of entry. I have time-controlled lights on the doors and motion-sensing floodlights on the detached garage. All are LED so they're fairly efficient and long-lasting.<p>- Simplisafe security system. It's self-installed, wireless, and no contract. Depending on your subscription you can get monitoring only, or monitoring plus a mobile and web app. I really got this more for the 24/7 smoke and carbon monoxide alarm monitoring, but the entry and motion sensors are a nice addition. (If you do have dogs, you might consider declining police dispatch though.) And there are little stickers / signs to try to scare off burglars.<p>- A large can of pepper spray (stream, not spray). I don't own a firearm (and I'd really rather not use it in the house even if I did). I think someone breaking into the house would most likely be a burglar and would rather flee than get in a fight, so I think a non-lethal solution is good to have.<p>- Cameras. I have a mix of brands of wireless cameras and iSpyConnect, watching the entrances. This is more for me to check in on things remotely, but the recording could be handy too.<p>- Neighbors. I'm not super-close friends with mine, but I'm neighborly, and we look out for each other.<p>- Insurance. If you're renting, make sure you have renter's insurance. A security system may get you a discount on your home or renter's insurance also. And an automatic offsite backup system is a good idea, of course (I use CrashPlan).
Internal and external burglar bars on all windows, and an outside perimeter fence. High walls on side and back, topped by barbed wire. Security gates on all doors. Burglar alarm linked to armed response, and outside perimeter beams. This is fairly standard in South Africa for standalone homes in decent areas. Much of this is to protect against home robberies (violent home invasions).<p>Many people have internal gates separating sleeping areas from the rest of their homes, as well as CCTV and electric fences. If you live in a gated estate with security, you can afford to forgo some, but not all of these.
I have an alarm system with passive sensors on each side of the house. So when I go to sleep, I activate the outside passive sensors.<p>There are also passive sensors inside the house so if I am not at home, I activate everything using a remote control. The system is pet friendly so my cat can move around freely.<p>I built a CCTV camera and installed it above the outside gate. It's more of a DIY camera than anything else, but it looks pretty good. I used a halogen light fixture to hold a Logitech web camera, and I've created my own adapter to convert the USB output to an ethernet cable setup, and back again to USB before it gets to my home server (which is in the garage). This was the cheapest way to do a USB webcam over such a long distance (8-9 meters).<p>I'll write a blog article about the camera project if anyone's interested in the details.
I used:<p>- magnetic contact sensor: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Magnetic-Sensor-Window-Warning-Switch/dp/B0050N7SM0" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Magnetic-Sensor-Window-Warning-Switch/...</a><p>- raspberry pi: <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org/" rel="nofollow">http://www.raspberrypi.org/</a><p>Wired up all contact sensor and connect to gpio on pi. Use pi to detect circuit break and send messages or phone calls via google voice.
I bought a piper (<a href="http://getpiper.com" rel="nofollow">http://getpiper.com</a>), you can integrate with some z-wave accessories to monitor the door, windows, turn on/off lights or device..
Is nice, whenever you want, you can connect and see whats happening in your house, see statistics (only for the last 48h) about temperature, humidity, light, noises, etc
Unfortunately is far from being perfect, a basic feature like automatic activation of the alarm during the days is not possible (and to me seems a quite basic feature for an alarm system).. This, together with the fact that activating/disabling the alarm takes too long, ends with me not using the alarm system at all, except for long absence from home
Having some public API to play with would be nice too..
Not much. To get to my place you actually have to know how to get there, you just can't randomly get to it. When inviting new friends over and even providing a map with directions, I get "where the hell is your place" calls most of the time.<p>Other than that, I have a Raspberry Pi with a camera running motion; it records video when movement is detected and offloads to a remote server. I have it in my room, pointing at the door, and I have a script that alerts me with Pushover whenever:<p>* Movement is detected and my phone is not in range.<p>* Movement is detected and an unknown WiFi device is in range (it sniffs WiFi probes).
Can you describe what you are looking to add?<p>Security is a process, and it depends on the situation how far you want to go.
You can buy / build / rent a home security system & service. You can establish good security practices like not allowing location services data (or your own big mouth) to broadcast or otherwise tell the world where you are or when you are or are not home, not placing valuable items in window view, keeping your doors and windows locked, doing regular lock checks, switching your door deadbolt lock so that former owners/renters/etc can't get in, etc.
Whenever I leave home I lock the door and hide the key somewhere. If I leave for more than a day, I give the key to my neighbor. That can come in handy, like once I forgot the passport at home, and the neighbor could get it and send it to me. But I live in a small village where everybody knows everybody. :) Also, I don't have anything expensive and that I would miss, except maybe my laptop. I'm more worried of somebody stealing my axe if I forget it outside than of somebody breaking in.
We use one dropcam pointed at the valuables in the house (the living room with all the monitors and computers etc.) Dropcam offers a lot of sensible features like camera schedules and location sensitive activity alerts that make the experience of buying the $200 device worth it. There's also night vision and a microphone + speaker. Needless to say, everything works seamlessly across devices, and you can buy 7-day cloud storage for an additional $99 a year.
I too have recently moved, I haven't yet purchased a security system but I have been looking around, these are the things I was looking for:<p>- No monthly fee<p>- A loud alarm<p>- Not necessarily calling the cops, I just want to be contacted, I can call the cops myself if needed.<p>I have found only two systems I like:<p>- The most expensive one: SmartThings, about 550$ for what I want, looks easy to set up. The only mentioned inconvenience is the wiress range of the hub. I have a pretty big house so I need to consider this.<p>- Skylink SC-2200 security system on Amazon. This is much cheaper 187$. But requires a landline (I don't have one). You can make it work using an "OBi100 VoIP" (also on amazon). The Obi100 can connect to google voice (free account but only in the US), it has a landline phone port which allows you to make the skylink system work. From what I have read you also need a cheap (8$) landline phone to make test calls at first.<p>Now I prefer the SmartThings system because it's simpler, and also you can control everything from an app on your phone. Skylink all it does is placing a phone call to your phone when something gets triggered ("door X has been opened"). Both systems used in this way have a failing point, your cable connection. If someone goes outside my house, and cuts the cable, my system is ineffective. With Skylink I think you can set up a sim card, and other system too. But that ends up costing a monthly fee, which I don't want.<p>I still haven't decided, I don't have much extra money for any system right now as I've spend so much for the house.
You are probably being paranoid about safety. The chances of someone breaking into your house through locked doors violating building security in a decent neighborhood are very small. You are far more likely to die in a car crash.<p>That said, if you want extra security in your house you could use deadbolt door and window locks. Those are very hard to get through. You could also buy a gun. Get a dog if you will be a responsible pet owner.
Insurance, but not too much. The expected value of insurance is generally negative, so only cover things you can't afford to lose or you think your risk is much higher than the insurance company estimate.<p>Cultivate a healthy attitude towards your possessions° - don't let them own you, and remember that it's just stuff at the end of the day.<p>° Incidentally, in my first draft I wrote relationship, not attitude, which is exactly the problem!
We have a dog, which is an excellent anti-burglary system. He won't bark at the mailman, but he will bark at strangers in my yard or people standing in front of the house in the middle of the night. (This actually happened a couple of weeks ago when my neighbours came home from their holiday late at night).<p>The thing is: the vast majority of burglaries are spur-of-the-moment things. Here in The Netherlands at least. Sure, if they know you have a lot of cash at home they might actively target you, but most of the time it's much simpler: they see an open window or 'easy' door lock and they act upon it. Burglars are extremely opportunistic. To fend off most burglars, you don't need to have the best security, you just have to have better security than the least protected.<p>If you read the crime reports in the US, this rings true. I can't tell you how many times you read 'phone stolen from unlocked vehicle' or 'entered house by slitting the screen door'. Common sense can go a long way.<p>For countries like South Africa and some countries in South America it's a whole other story I guess.
I'll never understand people going full security mode when they live in complete harmless neighborhood (and insurances are not crazy themselves). If anything you are asking to be robbed to be honest, combo challenge + there is probably something good to get.<p>You already living in an apartment in a secure building. Who do you think is coming for you? The Ocean's 11 squad? ><
I'm from Poland and I use solid doors and rolling shutters as described by davidw. I also have an Satel Grade-3 alarm system (one of the best systems in the world) that is basically used in banking institutions with sensors that are pet save. The funny thing is that I don't own any expensive stuff, so it's just for our personal safety.
WRT electronic countermeasures:<p>You can get a bunch of motion detectors and controllable outlets for cheap through Insteon/Smarthome. BestBuy has a decently priced starter kit with a hub, which uses both X10 and wireless transmission for redundancy. I've seen reviews of more expensive home automation systems that aren't as reliable because they use only one mode of communication, so I'm happy I chanced on the right choice. The system also works with ultra-cheap X10-only devices if that's good enough for you.<p>I have a couple controllable outlets with sirens attached to them that I can trigger remotely if my motion sensors and foscams show me something undesirable, and control the hub with Perl-based Misterhouse software. I think I saw Python and Java interfaces out there as well.
We have 4 internal cameras that use motion detection, and a house alarm that calls us if the motion sensors go off, or goes nuts if it detects movement at night.<p>We were broken into last year while we were asleep. We were only alerted after a few minutes when one of our Dogs freaked out and started barking. They ran away.<p>The cameras will be useful in terms of potentially identifying future burglars, but it's also more about feeling violated. They actually made off with very little considering what was just lying around but I'd love to know exactly what they were doing while they were inside. Pretty scary with a newborn sleeping upstairs and we were non the wiser.
One of the thing that always fascinate me with American film is how 'simple' a suburban house can be. You have 4 feet open windows and glass wall everywhere living in a neighborhood without any gate or security guard. That led me to believe that American must have it nice over there...until I actually went there. They do have similar common sense of protection as where I'm coming from such as hardened/laminated glass for window, and solid door+frame.<p>I add CCTV just to expedite any insurance claim. Socially, nothing beats tight-knit neighbors.<p>And if your toilet have one of those airduct/vent. Make sure the size is no more than a feet.
A couple of inexpensive PIR sensors and a couple of wireless IP cameras.<p>Sensors can trigger video camera, then images uploaded to cloud. Or just use the sensor built into camera (not as good).<p>The same sensor can alert your phone, and send image after which you can choose to alert cops or take more pictures or trigger alarm or even talk to the intruder all from your phone.<p>Some security cameras have "alarm out" and "audio out" for connecting optional alarms and speakers. I like Lorex IP cameras, but there's plenty of choice.
Ruger LC9 downstairs and Remmington Shotgun upstairs. I usually keep the LC9 on my pesron including while I work / watch TV etc. Someone is awake at all hours of the day and night and we have 2 dogs.<p>BUT<p>One thing I think a lot of people underestimate is a relationship with their neighbors. We don't have a neighborhood watch but we do communicate with our neighbors about shady activity and are always looking out for each other.
Good building security seems rare. I've been pretty surprised at the number of problems I've seen in SF buildings where thieves hit the mail room and bike storage regularly by just following residents in from the street.<p>Depending on how easy it is to tell if you are home it might be helpful to install a doorcam. That way when thieves knock to see if you are home you can answer remotely.
Make your house secure with other suggestions from here, and then add very visible additions to <i>show</i> that you are secure. E.g. Put up an armed reaction sign even if you don't have armed reaction. Barbed wire fence even though barbed wire is easy to work around. A red flashing LED light.<p>The best possible outcome is nobody ever testing the measures that you have put into place.
My wife visited her grandparents in western Pennsylvania some years back. They were going out to lunch, and being the last one out, my wife locked the door. When she mentioned this, her grandmother said, "I hope I have the key". She routinely left her house with the door unlocked!<p>Myself, I have a dog. I got to test the dog recently, when a locksmith was replacing the ignition switch on one of our cars. I kept waiting for him to finish. Finally, I gave up waiting for him and went to use the can. Of course, that's when he finished, and came in looking for me to pay him. The dog made it very clear that the locksmith was <i>not</i> coming any further into the house. It didn't attack him, but it drew a clear line on the floor: you go no further.<p>So, we lock our doors, and there's the dog. Anybody who gets past that has to worry about whatever I find handy. Lime-Away? Really good chemical warfare agent in a handy spray bottle (but it's almost like a gun, you can blind someone, so you'd better be <i>sure</i> before you pull the trigger). That tool for unscrewing supply hoses from the bottoms of sinks? (Good for jabbing or clubbing, light enough to get good velocity, heavy enough to do some damage.) Even a cat can be thrown, and will hit with claws out looking for some traction. Think. You've got way more weapons in a house than you might expect.<p>Now, would I consider that adequate in some situations like Mandatum's in South Africa? No way. But for where I live, it's probably good enough. (Or maybe I'm just cocky because I've been lucky.)
What are you trying to achieve?<p>Is it personal safety from intruders? Or safety of possessions from burglary or damage?<p>If the latter, do you really own anything that cannot be re-purchased? Any works of art or otherwise irreplaceable high value items? If not, just get insurance and do whatever the policy requires (window bolts, certain grade of locks for doors, etc).