Home and Neighborhood Safety

Crime prevention and personal safety tips to help keep you and your community safe from crime

Tips

• Organize neighborhood cleanup days to send the message that your community is closed to thieves, vandals, and loiterers.
• Ask the police to increase patrols of your neighborhood.
• Sponsor a Neighborhood Watch.
• Be sure the outside doors of your home or business have strong deadbolt locks.
• Keep spare keys with a trusted neighbor or nearby shopkeeper, not under a doormat or planter, on a ledge, or in the mailbox.
• Lock gates, garage doors, and shed doors after every use.
• Illuminate or eliminate places an intruder might hide: the spaces between trees or shrubbery, stairwells, alleys, hallways, and entryways.
• Set timers on lights when you’re away from home or your business is closed so it appears to be occupied.
• Keep your bike and sports equipment inside the house when they’re not in use.
• Avoid confrontations with burglars.

Excerpted from National Crime Prevention Council @ http://www.ncpc.org/topics/home-and-neighborhood-safety