Home Security Checklist

A starting point for assessing your home security.

Over time, we will send out more tips on specific techniques and products.

Everything you do to make your own house safer makes the entire community safer.

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The security products listed below are for example only. Alto Crimen does not endorse any particular brand or model. Please do your own research and find what will work best for your situation and budget. This list is organized on a home protection strategy that is easy to understand and provides a path to follow.

• Deter

• Detect

• Disrupt

• Defend

Deter - The first line of defense

By far the most cost-effective way to protect your property is to make it undesirable to thieves. Just like people, houses have attitude - some say “stay away” while others look like easy targets. The more you telegraph “go somewhere else” the less likely you are to become a victim.

• Avoid having dark areas around our house, garage, or yard that could hide prowlers. Solar motion detector security lights are cheap and effective.

  • Solar motion sensor lights - cheap, no wiring or batteries. Lots to choose from on Amazon. Lights that come on unexpectedly are more disruptive than always-on lights.

    

    

• Signage announcing protection by video cameras, dogs, etc.

  

• Do not provide obvious points of entry. Fences should wrap around and not have obvious weak points

• Visible motion sensor lights, cameras - No wiring, just stick them on a wall or near a gate.

  

  This line includes one that works on cellular - no wifi needed. Try to standarize on one brand so that the viewing software works across all your cameras. Most of these inexpensive cameras are the same inside, just different cases.

• Shrubbery - bougainvillea, thick hedge, prickly plants
  around fences and windows

• Window bars or security screens

• Barking dog

• No open doors visible from the street

• Lights on a timer/motion sensor

• Fake TV - the best bang for the buck in home security. Makes it look like someone is home when you are not. Or put it in an unused bedroom even when you are home. It will stop robbers from coming in thinking you are asleep.

  

• Barbed wire/razor wire

• Safes make you a target. You do not want to have a safe in your house

• Owing a gun makes you a target if anyone knows about it

Detect - You need to know when someone is coming onto your property

With an alert, you have time to react, turn on lights, alarms and disrupt their plans.

• You must know when someone is coming onto your property

• Motion sensors - the first line of defense. They should give you an audio alert even if you are asleep. Please take a look at my review of the Yolink motion sensor. Other Yolink sensors and alarms can be connected and coordinated with the hub, including Alexa. The range from the base station is 1/4 mile - far more than most remote sensors.

  

• Motion lights - That come on as soon as anyone enters your property

• Dogs - They need to be guard dogs, not pets that sleep with you

• Push notification cameras - Get a warning from your phone

Disrupt - Make them go away

If you are home and you realize something is not right, you need to make a lot of noise and light - right now! A panic button by your bed that sets off a very loud alarm is a good idea. Boat horns are cheap and very effective, as loud as a shotgun. An alarm that turns on lights all around and inside the house works. A very bright flashlight flashing around will disrupt and an intruder even if you can’t see them.

• Sirens, alarms

• Air horn - cheap and very effective. No false alarms, keep one by your bedside. Like a shotgun, point in the general direction and blast away. Everyone for a block around will wake up. Great used in combination wiht a very bright flashlight.

  

• Flashlight - LED flashlights have come a long way in a couple of years. Pointing a really bright flashlight at the eyes of an intruder will blind and confuse him to the point where he can’t know exactly what is going on. If a perimeter alarm goes off, flashing a light around the yard is a good disruption technique.

  

  There are lots of these to choose from. Like cameras, many use the same internal electronics.

• Panic button - can be set up with a Yolink system. By your bedside - hit it and all hell breaks loose.

Defend - Give yourself and your house a strong defense

If the bad guys can get into your house undetected through an unlocked door or window, you will be at their mercy. They will assert their dominance with violence. So make sure that your house is not easy to get into, even if all the previous precautions fail. YOU NEED TIME - MAKE SURE YOU KNOW THEY ARE COMING BEFORE THEY GET IN.

• Spare keys are kept with a trusted neighbor, not under a doormat or planter, on a ledge. Renters, make sure YOU have the ONLY set of keys to your house.

• All doors are locked at night and every time you leave the house-even if it's just for a few minutes.

• If there are glass panels in or near your doors, they are reinforced in some way so that they cannot be shattered.

• All entryways have a working, keyed entry lock and sturdy deadbolt lock installed into the frame of the door.

• Sliding doors and windows should have a stick in the track. Simple, cheap and effective.

• Every window in the house should have a working lock or is securely pinned.

• Windows are always locked, even when they are opened a few inches for ventilation.

• The most secure windows have bars or security screens. Especially small windows on the sides of the house that might make easy entry points.

• Guns - if you shoot someone in Panama, it will be the last thing you do in this country, regardless of who is hurt and who is “right.” Don’t put yourself in that position. Take care of the rest and a gun will never be necessary. And if you do have guns, make sure they are properly registered!

Please feel free to ask questions and make comments. You can reach us at info@altocrimen.com.

You can request an onsite home security assessmeant. We request a donation of $40 to build up enough to support more community services.