Important Home Safety Tips While on Vacation
Planning a trip? While you’re out enjoying a beautiful day at the lake, you shouldn’t have to worry about someone breaking into your home. Here are some important home safety tips to help keep your home safe when you’re gone:
- Put your mail and newspapers on hold.
It’s best to have the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) hold all of your mail until you return from your trip. You can visit this link at the USPS website to have them hold your mail. In our experience, USPS is great about not delivering any mail until the end date that you select. However, newspapers are not as good about this. To avoid piles of newspapers in front of your house, you might need to take additional steps…
- Tell your neighbors.
An easy home safety tip is to simply tell your neighbors the dates that you’ll be gone. They could stop by and collect any newspapers that were accidentally delivered and can also keep an eye on your home and let you or the police know if there’s any suspicious activity going on there. You could also leave a key with a neighbor or friend and have them stop by the house periodically to check up on things. But if you’re someone who likes to do the job yourself and doesn’t trust a lot of people, you might want to take additional precautions…
- Monitor your home from your smartphone.
The Internet of Things (IoT) for your home allows you to link various devices around your home to your smartphone. You’re probably going to be on your phone anyway, so you might as well use that technology to keep an eye on your home remotely. The MyQ app for iPhone and Android is a garage door opener app that, when paired with Chamberlain products, allows you to monitor your garage door and know if it is opened while you are away. There are many other remote services that you can use to connect your home to your smartphone. This technology allows you to do things like turn lights on and off in your home, adjust the thermostat, and even have live video footage of your home all on your phone.
You can never be too safe when leaving your home for a significant period of time. All of these home safety tips take just a little effort on your part and greatly increase the protection of your home. Taking these necessary precautions will allow you to relax and enjoy your trip.
(Photo credit: Zeray John via Flickr cc)
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