Home Renovation Is A Necessity Without Vacation Precaution

Going up to the cottage this summer for some R & R? Make sure your home is not the victim of a B&E with these security tips:

• Check your home insurance policy before you leave on vacation. Some have a clause that requires that the premises be checked every 48 hours in your absence for the policy to be valid. 
• Arrange for someone to come in once or twice a day and take in the mail, open curtains in the morning and close them at night, and cut the grass. 
• Illuminate dark corners of the yard with motion-sensing floodlights, replace burned-out bulbs on exterior light fixtures, and install inexpensive motion-sensing lights near entrances, garage doors, walkways, and porches.  

• Place landscape lights, porch lights, a few interior lights, and radio on different timers so it looks – and sounds- like somebody is home.
• Stop newspaper deliveries before you leave. Most newspapers have vacation stop/start forms on their websites.
• Invite your neighbors to park their cars in your driveway to give the illusion of people coming and going.
• Garages and garden sheds can provide a thief with the necessary tools to break into your home. Keep them locked and ensure ladders are locked up and out of reach. 

• Leave an itinerary, a phone number, and a house key with a trusted neighbor so they can contact you if something goes wrong with your house. 
• And finally, bolt patio doors and install deadbolts on all exterior doors and interior doors leading to the garage, basement, or solarium. The deadbolt should be at least an inch long and the strike plate should be secured into the door framing stud.

Want to discuss more? Contact our remodeling consultant now.