There are several reasons why burglaries rise in the summer months. Prowlers and burglars spend a lot of time staking out properties and hanging around outside, and just like everybody else, thieves don’t like hanging around in the rain or cold weather too much. The warmer months are also a time where people go away on vacation, offering a risk free opportunity for thieves. Finally, the warmer weather often means that people leave windows and doors open to keep their homes cooler, which can be an open invite for a burglar or thief to enter a property.

Summer checklist

Because the likelihood of getting burgled increases in the warmer months, it is important at this time of year to check your home security and that you are doing everything possible to reduce the risk of becoming targeted. The first thing to do is check your home insurance policy is up to date and covers everything of value around the home. If you are unhappy, compare house insurance online and find a better deal, but make sure your cover doesn’t lapse.

Secondly, you need to check your security. Burglar alarms are not always effective on their own. It can take just a few minutes for a thief to gain access to a home, remove valuables and leave again, resulting in them being long gone before anybody investigates as to why your alarm is going off. Think about installing additional security systems such as door guard alarms, which will reduce the amount of time a burglar has to plunder your property.

Impressions matter

Thieves often take great care in picking properties to burglarize and will judge a home from the outside. A house with an untidy backyard often gives the impression that the householder probably isn’t very security conscious. Householders that keep a tidy yard and garden give an impression that they are more likely to take a more conscientious approach to security too. Unkempt gardens with overhanging shrubs and high bushes also provide opportunities for a burglar to hide and watch a property, so make sure you tidy up the outside of your property and trim those bushes.

It is also important not to leave windows open throughout the warmer months. An open window offers an open invite to a burglar. Even when you are at home, a window left open while you are asleep could be tempting to a late night burglar, and there is nothing more frightening to wake up to realize somebody is in your property. If you do leave windows open at night, consider a motion alert alarm that will not only wake you if somebody attempts to enter your property, but also should scare off any intruder.

Lighting and locks

Because the majority of burglaries in the United States happen in the day, between the hours of 9am and 3pm, when most people are at work, it is important that your house is secure when you are out. Check all window locks around the home, including those on first floor windows; all too often people concentrate on downstairs security, but many burglars enter properties from upper windows. For this reason, never leave ladders lying about the back yard, and if you have a flat roof, take extra precautions and install glass breakage alarms, which should scare off any burglar who tries to smash his way in.

While most burglaries happen during the day, break-ins still occur at night. When it’s dark, burglars have less chance of being spotted so will sometimes break into properties in the middle of the night, often when people are asleep. Installing security lights outside will deter burglars, as will visible alarm systems and security cameras.

The summer months are a busy time for thieves, but taking basic precautions against burglary will ensure that your property isn’t targeted this summer and you home doesn’t become one of the many millions of properties broken into during the warmer months.

Stop mail and newspaper delivery

This may seem like an obvious one, but having mail or newspapers’ piling up at your home is a clear signal to thieves that your house is unoccupied. Call your newspaper delivery office and tell them to hold off on deliveries until you return home. Also, the US Postal Service can hold your mail for up to 30 days, so take advantage of this free service to take away the excuse opportunistic thieves need to break in to your home.

Ask a neighbor to keep an eye on your house

Another quite simple step, but it is effective at deterring potential burglars. What’s even better than getting your neighbor to just occasionally look at your home is for them to enter the house too. If anyone is checking out the comings and goings of your house to make sure no-one is there, when they see your neighbour enter this will give them a reason to move on.

Move that spare key

We all know how useful having a spare key hidden somewhere outside the house can be, but when you go on holiday make sure you remember to move it. Give it to a trusted neighbor if possible, or just put it back in the house. Thieves will almost always check the usual spots around your home for a key before they force their way into a home, so don’t give them that luxury.

Hiding your prized possessions

Keeping a safe in the house is never a bad idea, but often this is where the burglar will head to first. If they can’t open it, they may just pick it up and carry it off. For all those things that mean so much to you, like jewellery and heirlooms, try concealing them in a place that the burglar would not suspect. Diversion safes imitate everyday household objects, like a can of soft drink or am aerosol can, but allow you to store items inside them. The likelihood is that criminals in your home won’t even give them a second look, but instead go for more obvious items of value. When it comes to your most prized possessions, home contents insurance only covers you for monetary value, not sentimental value, so those things that just can’t be replaced should be placed inside a diversion safe.

Alarms to scare thieves away

Once you have taken these preliminary steps, it’s time to think about real protection for you home. A voice alert transmitter motion alert alarms inside your property will make it very uncomfortable for thieves if they find a way in and wander around the inside of your house. The loud alarm will most likely scare them away before they steal a thing. Door guard alarms are also very effective at keeping intruders away. These are a bit cheaper than motion alert alarms so at the very least you should have one of these hanging on your home entry doors. The alarm is triggered by a vibration on the door and its handle, and all you need to do is hang the alarm on your door handle. Another alarm that can be very handy is a glass breakage alarm. Fasten these somewhere next to a window, like the window pane, and when the window is knocked or broken a loud siren will sound, hopefully sending the thief running.

Surveillance in your home

If all the steps so far still haven’t deterred the thieves, then the next step will hopefully give the police what they need to lock up the criminal. Setting up cameras around your home might seem a bit much, but there are ways you can do it without affecting the privacy people have in your home. A great way to keep a watchful eye in your home while you are away is by using a hidden camera. These come in all different shapes and sizes, from looking like stereos to wall clocks. The disguise will make it hard for the thieves to realise they are there, and the camera will hopefully record a good image of the criminal for you to hand over to police.

Be vigilant!

Following these steps, or just a few of them, will make your home less attractive to thieves, and could prevent your house being robbed. Don’t wait for something to happen before putting a house protection system in place, do it now to stop thieves in their tracks.

U.S. residents who are tempted to use this Internet-recommended self-defense alternative should know that wasp spray is an insecticide, and U.S. Federal Laws prohibit the use of any pesticide or insecticide “in a manner that is inconsistent with its labeling.” In addition, there are some of our states that prohibit the use of substances for self-protection that are not specifically authorized for that purpose. What would happen if you squirt gasoline or kerosene into someone’s face? How about some sort of acid?

The main ingredient in pepper spray is oleo resin capsicum, which is a type of oil that is extracted from hot chili peppers and this produces a strong burning sensation in human and animal tissues, immediately upon contact. Pepper spray causes severe irritation of the eyes and lungs, and the person who gets sprayed in the face will cough and choke for fifteen minutes, their eyes will immediately close, and they will be way too distracted to continue the attack. Pepper Spray is non-lethal and does not cause any long term damage, harm or effect!

Wasp sprays, on the other hand, consist of one or more insecticides such as pyrethrum or propoxur.  Although the toxic side effects of such chemicals do, in fact, include eye and lung irritation in humans, they are poisons for the main purpose is killing insects and can cause some serious harm or injury to humans and pets. Does that smell like a lawsuit waiting to happen? How about the stories of the guys who rob a house, fall down, get hurt, and then lodge a lawsuit against the homeowner?

The rumor also states that wasp or hornet sprays are effective also because they are manufactured for use at greater distances, and they will project farther and more accurately than pepper sprays, which typically have an effective range of six to 10 feet. Well, it is the key chain sized pepper spray that projects around 6 to 8 feet, as does the model that is disguised as a lipstick! There are pepper sprays on the market, such as the Wildfire 18% which can be available in a 4 ounce “stream” size, and this variety has an effective range of about 15 to 18 feet! Then there are even larger sizes that can shoot a stream up to 20 – 22 feet!

How reliably a wasp spray in the face might work, as a deterrent against human assailants is bound to vary, according to differences in the formula used and the fact that they were never made for the purpose of self defense in the first place. The effectiveness of insecticide sprays for self-defense is not clearly known and an adult American would be better off to fight back with a bonafide non-lethal, self-defense pepper spray obtained from a reliable source!

Wasp spray is a bad idea.  But then again, so are rape and murder.  If I had to choose between wasp spray or nothing, you can bet your sweet bippy that I would use the wasp spray.  And I might get away with it, if I could prove that it was a sudden thought, a panic move in self-defense.  But if the assailant sues me on the basis of premeditated use of poison, I might be in legal hot water.  WHY plan to risk legal charges, when many of our products shoot just as far, and all of them are as effective or more effective and none of them leave me vulnerable to a legal challenge?  When you think of it that way, a few extra dollars spent on a good pepper spray is like insurance.  You hope you don’t need it, but when you do, you’re sure glad you’ve got it!”

Even though pepper sprays are completely legal for self defense, a few states have very specific laws regarding how and where you can purchase one. If you are within the contiguous 48 United States, but not in MA, MI, NY, or WI, then you can actually go online and order these wonderful non-lethal, yet effective, self-defense pepper sprays at a website such as www.FightBackGroup.com where they have an awesome selection, fabulous prices, and outstanding customer service! The items will be shipped via UPS to your door, and pepper sprays also make great gifts!

The families that live where the climate doesn’t permit year-round swimming are opening up their swimming pools if they have not already done so, and be sure to get a pool alarm IF you don’t already have one! A pool alarm is deal to be sure that there isn’t going to be an accident in your life concerning a small child or elderly person falling into the pool and being a drowning victim! These magnificent safety devices are battery operated and can not only sound an alarm when something does happen but they also have a radio frequency transmitter at the unit and a receiver at a base unit which can be kept in the house. So IF you are in the kitchen making the potato salad and the deviled eggs, and a child does fall into the pool, the unit will immediately alarm you.

The unit also has a safeguard whereby it cannot be turned off, so if you are fast asleep in the middle of the night and your teenager thinks they will have a few friends over for a skinny dip against your will, you will be informed. These days it is senseless to leave your family’s safety and well-being to chance and with great inventions and technology such as a pool alarm, there is absolutely no reason to ever have a mishap in that water, whether it’s the deep end or even the shallow end. By the way, most people are under the misguided thought that a person’s lung fill up with water and then they drown…no, it only takes about a tablespoon of water in the lungs to kill a person.

Your pets will also be safer with this pool alarm, as they can occasionally fall in and then get spooked and unable to get out. So, for more reasons than just the babies or senior citizens, it is good to be prepared and protected. It is going to be a long, hot summer, but enjoy it, keep happy, and keep safe! Get your today at Figthback Personal Security.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve stayed in some pretty crummy motels and hotels in my younger days,  and there were times when I surprised myself  by waking up all in one piece!

And I wasn’t some 97 pound weakling at the time – I was a 350 pound professional wrestler!

In the ring at night, As the “bad guy” or “heel” as we liked to called them. I might have taken turns throwing Dusty Rhodes, or Hulk Hogan around on the mat!  (Okay, if you know your wrestling, then you know that I’m no spring chicken, but the point is that there wasn’t much I was afraid of in those days – when I was awake and able to see my opponent. We went anywhere we wanted, no matter how rough the neighborhood.)

But… at night… when the lights were off, we all knew that someone with a pass key could slip into our room and we might not hear a thing. After all, we slept as hard as we “worked”. That gave me the willies!

Okay, now I’m older, and wiser, and while I no longer get used as a mop for the “Good Guys” to clean up the canvas, I’m still big enough to take care of myself, when I can see them coming.

And I don’t stay in those dumps anymore;  We stay in very nice hotels and motels. But… guess what! No matter where we are, and no matter how nice the hotel, I still turn and toss all night long with those funny feelings, wondering  if someone was in my room, or might be, before the sun came up.

If you had told me that you could solve that problem for a mere $100, I might have hurt my elbow getting the money out of my pocket. $50? “Give me two!”

I once tried a motion detector, but that backfired on me! Anytime my wife or I got up to go to the bathroom,  it went off! And that woke up everyone in our room and in rooms all around us!

If I have an uninvited guest, I WANT everyone to wake up! But I tend to forget about the motion detector until it’s too late! And then I found it! This is so cool – I wish I had it when wrestling in Mexico, or Japan, or San Antonio!

I sleep like a baby now, knowing that no one will come into my room until I’ve gotten up and opened the door, and there’s no way I’ll accidentally set it off.

This is it: the Door Stop Alarm Man, this is so simple, why didn’t I think of that?

At only $15.00 you might want to order several at this price,  because you are taking the first one in your suitcase,  every time you travel.

But… there are several doors in your house that need to be secured when you’re alone, or when your family is alone when you’re away from home.

This little device will:
Wake you up!
Probably send the intruder running!
Give you time to get to your favorite “welcoming device” for uninvited guests;
Give you time to set the dog loose; Etc.

Once inside your home, a burglar can turn into a rapist or murdered very fast, once he sees that you are asleep and no harm to him.  But if he knows that YOU know that he’s coming, thanks to the 2nd Amendment, he has to assume that you are also coming and that you are armed and dangerous.

This can save lives, and this price, you can’t afford to not have several.

PS. Don’t forget to give one of these to your daughter in college!  And give them as gifts to any young person who travels or lives away from home

Marshall was Jake’s loyal German Shepherd. For twelve years, he guarded Jake’s sporting goods store from would-be thieves and neighborhood troublemakers. Even as the neighborhood got a little worse, Marshall kept the peace.

Jake’s store was the only one on the block without any graffiti. Nobody, it seemed, wanted a run in with a big, angry guard dog.

Few people knew that Marshall was really a sweetheart, lavishing Jake with kisses every time he’d open the store in the morning.

Jake’s daughter, Melissa, kept the store’s books, and paid a visit to her father every Thursday. She knew the old man couldn’t afford to install a state of the art security system. But she also knew that he was a little too fragile to try and train another big dog.

She brought her father a gift on her next visit. “This,” she announced proudly, “will keep Marshall’s legend alive in the neighborhood.”

She explained to Jake that the Electronic Watch Dog used infrared sensors to watch the store at night, just like Marshall did. When intruders showed up at either the front or the back doors, the box would bark. And it would bark louder and louder until the disturbance went away.

That Saturday night, two teenage boys strolled up the sidewalk. The midnight streetlight stretched their shadows halfway up the block. They banged and pulled on security gates as they talked about the trouble they could cause.

“Didn’t old man Benson’s dog just die?” asked the tall one.

“I think I heard Billy say something like that,” replied the short one, “I could sure use some new sneakers!”

They hustled up to the front window, but before they could even try to break in, they heard loud barking from inside the store. And it was getting louder.

“Yo, I thought you said that dog was dead,” cried the short hooligan.

“He must have got a new one,” said his partner in crime, “I ain’t messin’ with no dog!”

The two juveniles hustled away around the corner as fast as their legs could carry them.

Marshall’s legacy remains intact. He’s still a presence in Benson’s Sporting Goods, with a picture above the cash register – and the loud bark from the Electronic Watch Dog.

A woman with a can of pepper spray joined other customers Wednesday afternoon to help a security guard who fought with a shoplifter in Macy’s at Georgia Square Mall, Athens-Clarke police said.

One of the department store’s loss-prevention officers watched 48-year-old Kenneth Dwayne Jones of Hull as he stuffed clothes into a bag then headed toward an exit, police said.

The security guard headed off the shoplifter, but Jones became combative and tried to force his way out of the store when he and the guard began to fight, police said.

The struggle spilled out of the store and into the area between double doors at the exit, where Jones tried to choke the guard and punched him several times in the ribs, according to police.

Several shoppers intervened, including a woman who sprayed the fighting men with a can of pepper spray, and an off-duty probation officer who helped subdue and handcuff the shoplifter, police said.

Jones had tried to steal 10 shirts, three pairs of slacks and four pairs of jeans, together worth $1,078.99, police said.

He was charged with felony theft by shoplifting and battery, police said.

The loss-prevention security officer didn’t need medical treatment for any injuries, police said, but EMTs flushed out Jones’ eyes with water.

A Los Angeles Police Department sergeant suspected of robbing a Mentone home in October was charged Monday with the crime.

The San Bernardino County District Attorney’s office filed the complaint againt Lucien A. Daigle, 44, of Highland. He has been charged with one count of first degree burglary, with the added stipulation that the person was present.

According to police, Daigle was interrupted by the home’s resident Oct. 23 while he was taking things from the house. The resident reacted to the burglar by spraying him with ibear repellant, an industrial strength level of pepper spray.

After being sprayed, the suspect ran from the scene and drove away. A short time after receiving a call about the burglary, deputies received a call of a crash nearby. When they arrived, they detected a strong odor of pepper spray. The driver in the crash was identified as Daigle, and he was transported to Loma Linda University Medical Center with minor injuries.

During a search of Daigle’s vehicle, officers found several items from the home in his car. They arrested Daigle at the hospital.

Daigle, who is free on $125,000 bail, will be arraigned Dec. 27.

We have an instructor with many years experience in instruction in police and sheriff’s departments. He is able to teach a course for you and your group, at a gun range or a rural venue, with a focus on Introductory Safety Course, a Woman’s Handgun Course, an Intro to Shotgun Course, and much, much more.

Courses are usually $99, with a minimum of 15 students at a gun range, or 12 students at a rural location. www.teachmyhands.com/ gives you some of the information. The morning session will be taught inside, at a home, then the afternoon will include shooting at the range. Most people want to stay longer and shoot more.

Please pass the word, and let us know if anyone is interested.