New Beginnings: How to Protect your New Home

Hello World!  Welcome Friends! Buying a new house is a huge and exciting investment, whether you’re going solo, moving in with your significant other, or finding the perfect family home. When making this big life change, you want to make sure your home, and the possessions inside it, are safe and sound so you can sleep easy at night and enjoy this new chapter in your life. Moving into a new home is a wonderful time, and often you can get swept up into the dreamy thoughts of your new life, letting the practicalities of keeping your house secure slip, becoming nothing more than an after-thought but there is nothing more important than protecting what you love and have worked hard for. This pocket-sized guide will give you some essential starting points.

Choosing the right place

As you start looking for your new home, it is crucial that you make an informed choice about where to settle in terms of safety. You may see a wonderful house on your search, but if it is in a neighborhood that has a high rate of burglaries, you will either want to stay clear or be prepared to invest in extra security to take on the house with peace of mind. You can easily check out the safety of an area by using a crime mapping service, for example, or seeing how many homes are on the market in that area. A general rule is that the more homes either on sale or vacant, the bigger the risk of crime. Of course, do bear in mind, that is a suggestion, not a rule, and many neighborhoods may have homes on sale for completely other reasons, but it is a good indicator.

Taking precautions

Now you have chosen a place to settle, perhaps even put an offer in, your job is to know how to properly secure your home once you’ve moved in, and this doesn’t have to be a mammoth task. Things as simple as installing a solid wood or metal front and back door or replacing widow latches with locks immediately reduces your risk of being broken into. Similarly, keeping hedges and trees trimmed back or kept low eliminates places burglars can hide and placing security lights around the house boundaries will add another factor that will dissuade potential criminals.

Taking out the trash

It may seem odd, but the things we throw away can be of interest to potential criminals. If you have just brought a new fancy television for your new home and leave the box out by your bin, for example, because it won’t fit inside, anyone could walk past and now know you have that expensive tv in your home, making you a target. When disposing of packaging for costly items, make sure they are firmly placed in your bin and, should they not fit, cut up the packaging so it can easily fit inside where no passer-by might see it.

Under lock and key

Of course, protecting your home doesn’t just mean protecting it from crime, but also the contents from damage. With a new home, there are many expensive necessities, such as an oven and refrigerator, or air-conditioning and heating systems that need protection as they are vital to comfortable living. To secure these, it is a great idea to look into home warranty companies in AZ that can give you the practical and financial security of knowing everything in your home is safe and secure. Investing in a warranty means you don’t have to worry about damage or the cost of repair.

A knock on the door

If a criminal has decided to target your home, they might even pose as a civilian and come to knock on your door to case your home. To help prevent giving away information about the interior of your house, a good idea is to install a peep-hole, so you can always see who is outside before you open your front door. Another good idea is to install a chain so that you can open the door enough to see someone outside without having to expose the home, or yourself, to potential intruders. While this may seem slightly overboard, the purpose of having these extra means of security is to give you peace of mind more than anything else.

Buying a new house should be an exciting time in your life, and by taking care of securing both your home and your possessions, you can get back to enjoying having somewhere new to call home.

Click the links below for any posts you may have missed!

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5 Ways to Maximize your Outdoor Space

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