It is not much of a secret that the most promising targets for burglars are homes with no one inside.
And the best way to let a burglar know that you are not home? It is all about the lighting.
Sure, your light fixtures can't call the police if someone breaks into your home.
But having the right lighting can be a great boost to your home security, by deterring potential burglars from choosing your home as a target in the first place.
Here are some guidelines to help you use indoor and outdoor lighting to your advantage.
Having sufficient outdoor lighting is a crucial part of ensuring your home security.
You will want to be especially careful to make sure that you have enough lighting near doors and windows, as well as the area around the garage, along the sides of your house, and behind your home.
These are the places where break-ins are most likely to happen.
Having adequate lighting in these places will eliminate places to hide and make it much more difficult for potential burglars to enter your property unnoticed.
The best way to both save money and deter criminals with outdoor lighting is to use lights that have motion sensors.
By using lights with motion sensors, not only will you spend less money on your monthly electricity bill than if you use lights that must be left on the entire night, but you will also increase your home security.
That is because you will be notified immediately if there is someone-or something-lurking around outside your home.
If you have pets or other animals that might be on your property, you can adjust the sensitivity of your motion sensors so that these animals will not be able to activate the lights, thus decreasing the possibility of a false alarm.
An early alert gives you more time to identify whatever it is that activated the light, and call the police if necessary, even before an actual break-in occurs.
When installing outdoor lighting, whether with motion sensors or without, be sure to set it up high enough so that it will be out of reach to criminals who may try to tamper with it or disable it.
If a burglar is able to easily remove a light bulb, it defeats the purpose of having lighting in the first place and can pose a threat to your home security.
Another thing that might make your home an easy target for burglars is if you get into the habit of always leaving a single light on inside your home when you leave at night.
Patterns like this are easy for a burglar to catch on to, and doing something like this sends an obvious signal to potential intruders that the "coast is clear.
" You can greatly improve your home security by, instead of leaving just one light on when you go out, leaving several lights on, along with a radio or something else that makes noise.
You can use timers so that various lights go on and off at different times, giving the impression that someone is home.