Sheriff's Office

Home Safety Tips for Summer Travelers

• An empty house is a tempting target for a burglar, so make sure you do your best to have your home look occupied while you are away. Find a trusted friend or neighbor to watch your house. Give them your contact information in case they need to get a hold of you.
• Never broadcast your travel plans on a community email group, blog, Facebook, or other social networking site and remember if you check-in on foursquare or Facebook, everyone knows you aren't home!
• Install good locks on the doors and windows and use them.
• Engrave your valuables with your phone number.
• Never leave a house key hidden outside of your home. If it is hidden in a pot, under the mat, beneath a rock or in a fake rock, someone else may find it and enter your home while you are away.
• Stop all deliveries or arrange for someone to pick up your mail, newspapers, and packages.
• Arrange for someone to mow your lawn and maintain the yard while you are away. This keeps your home looking lived in.
• Place your inside lights and a radio on timers so that they go on and off periodically in the evening hours.
• Hide your garbage cans out of sight. If your garbage cans are empty when everyone else's is full, it is a sign that you are not at home.
• Turn the ringer on your telephone down low or off so that people outside of your home will not hear the phone ringing go unanswered.
• Be sure to close and lock the garage door too. When possible, have a friend or family member park a car in your driveway occasionally so that it looks like someone is still at home.
• Leave your blinds and drapes in their normal position on second floor windows (closed on ground level so no one can look inside and view an empty home).
• Remember, when you return home if it looks like someone has entered your home - Do not go inside! Instead use a cell phone, go to a neighbor's house or other safe location to contact the police. Let the police check the home first.