Securing Your Home During Your Absence

Arrange for a friend or neighbor to keep an eye on your home.
Stop your mail and newspaper delivery if you are going out of town, or make arrangements to have them picked up while you are away. Packages left on a doorstep are a dead giveaway that a home is empty, so arrange to have them delivered upon your return or to a secondary address.
If you do not have a home security system with automated features, put your lights on timers rather than leave them on all the time.

Even a grill or tools left outdoors can be tempting for a person looking for signs of an easy break-in.
Take a careful look around and figure out if there is anything that would be worth stealing which can be viewed through a window. If so, move it out of sight, or better yet, lock it away.

Are all locks on doors and windows in good working order? Pay special attention to screen doors.
If you have motion sensors or security lights around your home, make sure the lights are working properly. A sensor with a faulty light is as bad as a guard dog who doesn’t bark at a burglar.

This is critical in the age of cybercrime and expert hackers.

It can be tempting to share the news of your five-city European vacation on Facebook but ABC News reports that 78% of burglars scour social media to locate potential victims.
Don’t send photos or post photos from your vacation while you are away. Your friends will see them but so will other people who are not your friends. Have fun sharing them once you are back home.
Keep answering machine and voicemail messages simple and straightforward. Callers should only hear that you are not available at the moment. They do not need the dates of your departure and return or highlights of your travel itinerary.
Be equally cautious about away messages on your personal email account.
Be sure to review your privacy settings and the apps that have access to your location. Change or disable them as necessary if you will not need the services while you are away.