Posts Tagged ‘elderly care’
The Importance Of Home Security
People have always tried to protect themselves and their families, just like most animals do. In very early days, cavemen protected their caves by lighting fires outside the entrance to discourage interlopers and wild animals. Later on, man learned how to increase his security by training dogs to safeguard him and his family. Later still, houses and then doors were invented; bars and locks arrived soon after that.
However, until a few decades ago in the west, people lived in extended large families. A family could consist of six-to-ten children and the mother and the grandmother would often live there too. This made home security systems extraneous from the early 18th Century to the 1930’s, which were quite peaceful times. After the Second World War, families were not so large and new families got their own house away from their parents.
Nowadays, both parents are likely to be working and the children are probably at school. This means that many houses are left unoccupied during the day, making them easy plunder for burglars. In fact, the number of household burglaries has increased by almost 10% in the last five years according to American government figures. Furthermore, according to a survey, forty percent of home burglaries were carried out due to inappropriate locks and doors.
ANSI (American National Standard Institute) produced a standard for deadbolt locks for external doors which is very hard to beat. If you are worried about your external doors, you should seek these ANSI deadbolts out, but beware, there are many copies. However, regardless of the sort of lock, the quality of the door is just as crucial. Its thickness and composition can also be a disincentive. After all, why put an expensive deadbolt on a door made of cardboard?
There are about 14,000,000 home burglaries every year in the United States and many of them are avoidable. The first stage that you should attain in home security is strong doors and sturdy locks. Deadbolts on exit doors is a good idea.
Once you have completed that, get some outdoor security lighting that reacts to either motion or body heat. The former type are microwave and the latter passive infra red sensors. These sensors will also contain a daylight sensor so that they will only become active at night. The sensors will also save you money by activating the powerful halogen floodlights only when someone enters the scope of the sensor’s beam.
Once you have done that, you should think about a home security alarm system. This should consist of contact sensors on all exterior doors and windows, vibration sensors on all widows to alarm you in case of breakage and PIR or microwave motion sensors in the corridors and hallways.
Then, if you want to go even further in your home security system, you can fit surveillance cameras on each exterior wall of the house and maybe one in the interior too. You do not have to take all these precautionary measures at once, if you are short of cash, but they should be taken in that sequence.
Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on many topics, but is currently involved with home security systems comparison. If you are interested in Security Systems For Home Use, please click through to our site.
Protect Your Home And Family
Everybody worries about the security of their homes and families. The question is: how can you make your home safe without turning it into Fort Knox? The sad fact is that, if someone is resolute to get into your home, they can and will. Ten years ago, my home was ’safe’, but I was tricked into opening the door and I let my attackers in. No home security system can protect against situation like that.
Burglars look for homes that appear vulnerable. Most crooks are opportunistic. In other words, if they see an open door or window or if it is obvious that no one is at home and if there is no obvious security, then it is worth them attempting to get in. Open gates are also an invitation. So are valuable belongings put on show in windows.
It only takes minutes to steal something, you would be astonished. I let two armed robbers into my house and they timed 15 minutes to take everything of value in my house and then a car stopped outside to pick them up. It was night time and I was tied up. It could have been a taxi, which would not have aroused my neighbours’ suspicion.
It is important to show people (opportunistic thieves) that you have a home security system of some type. If you cannot afford a proper, working alarm system, get a dummy siren box with a flashing light. It is not as good as a real system, but it would take a brave or desolate burglar to find out, which means that you cannot tell anyone at all, in case it gets out.
A home security system is well-worth the money you will spend on it. The stress of being burgled or even held up, like I was, will make you wish that you were more security aware. But it does not stop when the burglars go away. Then the police come and I spent from midnight until 4AM at the police station. I had to go back at least a dozen times after that. My insurance company had dozens of questions and it took four months to get a payout.
I felt certain that the burglars knew me, and I felt threatened everywhere I went for months. I could not stop glaring into people’s eyes to see if I could recognize my intruders’ (they had masks on, but I saw one man’s eyes). My life has altered radically. I even moved out of my house the next day and never went back again.
As I said before, I had a good system in place, but I had turned it off as soon as I got home and opened the front door to my intruders. My suggestion is to get a wired or wireless home security system and, if you can afford it, get a monitored home security system with at least one surveillance camera, but preferably one on each external wall and one inside in the hall.
Obtain contact sensors for all external doors and vibration sensors for all windows. Put a personal panic button by all external doors and have garden lights that are switched on by motion or body heat outside. Keep your system activated and be very suspicious of who you open the door to.
Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on many topics, but is currently involved with wired home security systems. If you are interested in Security Systems For Home Use, please click through to our site.
categories: alarm systems,security,home,business,family,home business,home accessories,consumer electronics,elderly care,other,uncategorized,happiness,retirement,interior design
Panic Alarms For Home And Business Security Systems
In all probability, every home and every business would benefit from the protection of a panic alarm. Breaks-in are common enough, but with people living longer the chances of stroke or heart attack have risen too. If you were living alone it would be awful to be lying on the ground incapacitated for hours. Panic alarms are the solution. They can be sited in a handy location or worn around your neck.
These are not the kind of personal alarms that emit a high pitched whistle or siren sound. Those alarms are meant to discourage criminals on the street or to draw attention to the user. No, I mean a device that triggers your home security system. it does not create a noise of its own, but communicates with the main security control box by some sort of radio signal.
Some of these panic alarms do not activate the main security siren, but instead send a message to a monitoring security company. These so-called silent panic alarms are most often used in banks, firearms shops and places that deal with lots of cash. However, any business could use a silent panic alarm. Household alarm systems usually trigger the external siren in order to alert your neighbours that you are having problems.
Panic buttons are especially helpful to the elderly or and infirm. Sometimes, people fall and cannot get up. You could also have a heart attack or stroke and not be able to make it to the phone. A panic button on a ribbon around your neck would resolve this problem. Some of these panic buttons are monitored too and others even have a microphone and speaker so that you can speak to an operator and explain your predicament.
Some of these panic buttons have a keypad so that you can send codes to the operator. Other means have been built into watches and brooches in order to make them easier to carry. If you wear your panic alarm, it is much less easy to forget to take it with you when you go upstairs or into the garden.
If you can afford security, you really ought to have a system, as good as you can afford, installed into your home and business. A panic alarm is a useful extra item for home and office use too, but it is especially reassuring to the elderly. Many older people are frightened of falling when they are in the house alone and fear of burglars or worse is a constant worry. A panic alarm linked to the main home siren is also a reassurance to women living alone.
If you do get a home security system with a panic button, make sure that you keep a spare battery near at hand and check that the battery in the device has not become depleted. You should also advise the neighbours you get on best with that you have a home security set-up and that they should come to your aid or phone the police, if they hear your home security siren and see the flashing light.
Owen Jones, the writer of this writer, writes on many topics, but is currently involved with home security systems comparison. If you are interested in Security Systems For Home Use, please click through to our site.
Do You Have Security Breeches In Your Home Or Business?
Security is an essential aspect of life, but then it always has been. It is normal for parents to try their best to take care of their families and it is normal and even a legal requirement for an employer to ensure the safety of his or her staff. Part of the way we carry out these tasks is to defend the environment in which we live and work – our homes and our offices or other places of work.
A proper security system for our homes and businesses is usually an electronic system. Windows and doors – ie possible entry points – will be monitored by sensors. In order to preserve an operational security system, it is indispensable to use a regularly changed password system. In a home the keypad will normally be numeric only, but you should change the password at least every month and possibly even every week.
For example, if you have teenage children or older, they will be bringing friends back. These friends will be able to see you child entering the password. This can be even more serious if the person is a boyfriend or girlfriend who subsequently gets dumped.
Similarly in an office or other place of work, it is a good idea to have pass cards that can be canceled if the employee leaves the firm. A lot of harm is caused every year to material goods by disgruntled ex-employees and old boy- and girlfriends.
You can assist passers-by and police by leaving some light on inside your building. Frequent passers-by, neighbours and police will get used to seeing lights on, so if a burglar switches them off, they will become suspicious.
Burglars do not like light. Similarly, do not let bushes, shrubs or trees hide possible entry points. Keep them cut back so that people can see any doubtful activity. You would be astonished how many people just sit in their windows all day watching.
Outdoor security lighting is an outstanding way of deterring criminals at night. Set up a few solar garden lights that are switched on by passive infra red motion sensors and they will be cheap to run. The good thing about them is that they do not announce their presence to the would be intruder, but they will catch him or her in a floodlight when he gets onto your property.
Another tip is to nail carpet gripper just under the top edge on the inside of your garden fence. Anyone trying to haul himself up over your fence will have a very horrible surprise and leave DNA for the police.
If your business or home has an open door policy in order to allow clients or your kids to walk in, install doorbells or chimes that are triggered by under carpet sensors, door sensors or PIR’s, so that employees or family can not be caught by surprise. It is very useful, because if your busy secretary doubles as a greeter of walk-in clients, it will guarantee that she does not miss anybody or keeps anybody waiting.
Owen Jones, the writer of this writer, writes on many topics, but is currently involved with home security systems comparison. If you are interested in Security Systems For Home Use, please click through to our site.
categories: alarm systems,security,home,business,family,home business,home accessories,consumer electronics,elderly care,other,uncategorized,happiness,retirement,interior design
Security Bars: Are They Worth The Risks?
There are many things that families and businesses perform in order to secure their property. One measure that is often taken in the name of security is the addition of security bars to doors and windows. In spite of the inherent benefits of securing property, these bars often create risks of endangering the people inside.
One thing remains accurate, most burglars will keep moving rather than try entering into a home that has security bars on doors and windows. Home protection is the only security that these bars supply however for many, the risks involved in having these bars on windows is not worth the small measure of security that is provided. In other words, the good of these bars is really outweighed by the negatives.
A lot of people do not purchase new security bars but rather rely on the same bars that have covered the windows of the home or business for many years. Some of these are rusted and nearly impossible to remove. In emergency situations, every second counts and these bars can be the very things that trap people inside a burning or flooding building.
Security bars are no longer the cheap alternative to traditional alarm systems and monitoring services that they were touted to be in the past. In fact, more often than not the present a greater risk than they are a benefit to business and homeowners. Many larger companies offer free installation of alarm systems and alarms as well as monthly monitoring services at reasonable rates. More significantly not only are these monitoring services presented for breaks-in, but also for fire and smoke as well as panic button services.
Security bars may have had a time and place, but they have been replaced by something that is much more effectual at deterring criminals as well as something that offers a greater degree of protection for the most precious assets of any home or business – the people inside. The costs concerned in monthly monitoring seem great but most will find that the value this service provides if and when it is ever called upon is well worth every penny.
Options to burglar bars that are not terribly expensive include planting thorny bushes below windows and keeping them trimmed back just enough that they do not block a view of the windows. Most intruders do not want a difficult entry point and they certainly do not want to be wounded during the process by prickly plants. Lighting is another alternative that is essentially less expensive than it would be to fit burglar bars. Intruders do not want to be observed. If the area surrounding your home and business is well lit, it will serve as a deterrent. Explore options such as this before resorting to security bars.
To answer the question of whether or not security bars are worth the risks for home or business protection the answer would be a resounding “No!”. There are other preventative measures that can be taken in order to deter intruders that pose far less risk to family members and employees. These alternatives should be implemented rather than those that pose additional risks to those you are trying to look after.
Owen Jones, the writer of this writer, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with home security systems comparison. If you are interested in Security Systems For Home Use, please click through to our site.