Vacation Rental Home Security Systems
Vacation home security is now more important than ever. With rising unemployment, vandalism due to high scrap prices for copper, metals and aluminum, and longer times between visits due to high gas prices or airline fees.
While foreclosure rates remain high, even for vacation homes or second homes, criminals will be seeking crimes of opportunity.
Some of us turn to time-share properties as a more affordable alternative. Each of these two forms of vacation home ownership present unique home security issues.
If you own your own vacation home and live there either seasonally or on a weekend basis, you're leaving your second home unoccupied for significant periods of time. You're also establishing a pattern of occupancy that any savvy intruder can soon learn and use to his advantage. If you own a time-share property, you own a percentage of a vacation home. You're sharing it with complete strangers who may or may not adhere to the same standards of security that you do. And, of course, you trust your time-share company to properly maintain and secure the property during those periods when nobody is staying there.
You may believe that merely applying the same safety practices you follow in your primary residence should be enough to protect your vacation home. But in fact, you need to go above and beyond the rituals of safety you'd observe in a home you live in on a more frequent basis. Homes that look unoccupied are easy targets. You've seen those homes with newspapers piled up outside or that appears pitch black at night when the rest of the neighborhood is lit. Consider the following guidelines for protecting your vacation home year-round:
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Introduce yourself to your neighbors - particularly those who reside in your neighborhood year-round. Tell them what your schedule is, and ask them to keep an eye on things while you're away. That doesn't mean handing them a key, although you may wish to do so if you know and trust your neighbors well enough. And watching over your home doesn't have to be a job to which you burden your neighbors; simply ask them to remain alert to your home's appearance. Leave with your neighbors all of your contact numbers at your primary residence, so that they may contact you immediately in the event they spot suspicious activity. Give them verbal approval to contact the local police department in your absence, particularly if they spot suspicious activity and can't reach you by phone.
