Moving home is an exciting and extremely busy time. There’s a lot to think about, you have to pack everything up, sort out your mail forwarding, register your utilities and a whole host of other things.
Security is probably way down on your list of things to do but unfortunately it’s at precisely this time that you’re most vulnerable to opportunistic theft.
At your existing home you will be packing everything up and if someone decides to steal your possessions, they’re already packed for easy transport! You should make sure that you try to not advertise the fact that you’re moving in the first place. Keep curtains or blinds in place until the last possible moment so that passersby can’t see into your house and all of your packed boxes.
If it’s possible try to make sure there’s always someone in the house, especially in the final few days when everything is ready to go.
A lot of burglaries take place during the day and are opportunistic in nature. Burglars simply enter through open doors or windows. You may be making a few trips here and there while you organize everything, you need to make sure you always lock your house up.
In today’s modern age burglars also make use of social media to find out when people aren’t going to be at home. Posting on your Facebook wall that you’re moving, without the right privacy settings in place, is exactly the type of thing that modern criminals can target with free software to search public Facebook posts.
At your new home you should take the same precautions as for your existing home and try to consider the following:-
- Walk around your new home and try and think like a burglar. Are there any weak spots around your new home? Burglars like high fences or walls, hedges that are overgrown and anything that shields their activities.
- If you’ve bought or are buying new appliances for your new home, don’t leave all of the packaging on display around your refuse area, it just let’s people know that there’s shiny new items about. Flatten the boxes and put them in your recycling bin.
- You should consider getting a complete security audit and risk assessment from a professional security expert. These are normally provided by professional locksmiths across Australia.
- When you move into a new home and get your keys, ask yourself how many other keys to your doors are in circulation? If it’s a new house then you shouldn’t have any problems but if it’s not a brand new home you can get your locks re-keyed. This is commonly known as ‘changing the locks’ and brings to mind complete replacement of all of your locks. In fact it’s much simpler and cheaper than you might expect as a locksmith will simply change the pins in your current locks and provide you with new keys.
- Don’t leave spare keys in common places such as near the doorstep, fake rocks, mailboxes or under the doormat. It’s one of the first places that burglars look and it may be a tempting option when you’ve just moved especially if you haven’t yet got keys cut for all of your family.
The information contained in this post highlights some of the potential pitfalls regarding security specifically around moving home. You should consider additional recommended security measures for your home such as video surveillance or an alarm system. And to successfully move home always use a well established and trusted mover .