Our home lives are often complicated and stressful enough without anything going wrong. When you throw malicious criminals into the mix, you can end up in situations that are almost too much to bear! Although it’s not a pleasant thought, there are a lot of security threats to your home which you need to be aware of. Here are three big ones.
First of all, moving scams. Even when everything goes great, moving is an extremely stressful experience. When there’s a devious scammer involved though, the whole process becomes even more frustrating! The moving industry has been a big target for scammers over the years, possibly because you don’t need to hire moving companies all that often. One of the biggest red flags to look out for is a blasé home inspector. In one common scam, an inspector will whip around the house quickly, barely noting down the items you want to take. Then, the scammers use this ambiguity to up the price after the job is done!
Another big threat to look out for is burglary. Like most people, you might have gone through life assuming that this would never happen to you. Your home should be the one sure place where you can relax and feel safe. Unfortunately though, burglaries can and do happen. If you’ve been burgled, then have a reputable locksmith change the locks on your home. Click here for one example of this. Afterwards, there are a few things you can do to lower your chances of this happening again. Hide all the valuables in your home if they’re visible from the outside. You may also want to try what some people call “strategic landscaping”. This involves planting rose bushes and other thorny plants underneath windows which burglars might try to use. Buying a large, indoor dog and making its presence visible is another common tactic. Be careful with this one though. Big dogs will be great at attacking an intruder, but may be equally dangerous to your children.
Finally, cowboy builders. Sadly, this is one of the most common scams out there today, although more efforts are being made to clamp down on them. Obviously, there’s a lot of money involved in any large home construction project, so make sure you’re not taken for a ride! The first thing to look out for should be incredibly low rates. This is one of the main tactics cowboys use to lure in their victims. Once you’re liaising with them, many of them will refuse to give you any references. Even if they do, they may be overly eager to get the work started straight away. This is so they can do a shoddy or unsafe job, and move onto the next victim before you catch on! Some of them might claim to be a part of a trade association, but make sure you investigate this before taking it as truth!
There you have three of the most common domestic threats you could be a victim to. Hopefully, you’ll never even be targeted by these criminals. If you are though, being vigilant will certainly pay off!
Photo by CEphoto, Uwe Aranas, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=35992013
