Home Safety Tips: How To Keep Your House Secure With Holiday Guests

The holidays are fast approaching, meaning our calendars will soon become sprinkled with festive activities and visits from out-of-town guests. While it’s great to have friends and family around to help spread holiday cheer, it’s important to keep your home secure as guests trickle in. Here are some home safety tips you can use to keep your home safe even while it’s full.

Introduce them to your Home Security System

It’s a little after midnight and you’ve finally dozed off in bed. Just as you pull your holiday-themed sheets tighter around your shoulders for warmth, a painfully loud screech sounds across your bedroom. After nearly jumping out of your skin, you hear your Uncle Lou shout from down the hall “It’s just me, it’s just me! I didn’t know your home had a security system.” Sure, at the moment you may be upset with Uncle Lou, but you can’t expect your family to know about your home’s security system unless you tell them. Relaying this information is one of the top home safety tips because it prevents that unwanted late-night wake-up call, or worse, a costly false alarm.

You can begin educating your houseguests on your security system shortly after they first arrive. Determining which equipment and features you discuss should depend upon how long your guests will stay and the level of comfort you have with them using your system.
If you expect your visitors to travel in and out of your house at their leisure, like Uncle Lou, consider teaching them how to arm and disarm your panel. Certain security panels allow you to set up unique passcodes for different individuals, letting you know who has made it inside your home.

For the sake of consistency and organization, keep your houseguests aware of the time you plan to arm your system each night.

Lock It Up

Word on the street is that it’s important to keep the main entry points of your home, such as front and back doors, locked up. This quintessential home safety tip keeps your humble abode secure by preventing unwanted guests from getting inside. However, keeping your doors locked can get tricky during the holidays when guests are revolving in and out of your house.

An easy solution homeowners with smart locks can use is to give their guests temporary passcodes to use for entering their homes. This can grant them the freedom to come and go as they please while you monitor your lock’s activity from your phone. Once the holidays are over and your houseguests have returned home, you can delete the passcodes.

If your doors have traditional locks, plan out ahead of time the exact number of spare keys you’ll be giving to houseguests. You can keep track of the new keys by color-coding the keys with bright tape or paint. Before your guests leave, be sure to have them return the key. If you worry you might forget, set up a reminder on your phone or somewhere visible in your house.

Smile, You’re On Camera

Want to make sure your Uncle Lou or that strange guy your sister brought home for the holidays aren’t getting into the Thanksgiving desserts while you’re away? Then it’s time to install indoor security cameras. These handy dandy compact devices do a great job of keeping you connected to your home from anywhere. Just find a spot with a prime vantage location to place them, like a kitchen counter or bookshelf, and watch live video surveillance from your phone. Indoor security cameras with two-way voice audio let you speak to whoever is around your camera. It’s a great idea to warn your houseguests of the indoor security cameras soon after they arrive.

Home Safety Tip: Invite Protect America Home for the Holidays

The holiday season leaves you with plenty to stress about already. Between planning elaborate meals for the family, shopping for presents, decorating the house and hosting events, it’s hard to schedule in time to practice securing your home on your own. Here’s another home safety tip for you: let Protect America take care of things for you. Our home security packages are customizable, meaning you only pay for the equipment that best serves the needs of your family. 24/7 live monitoring leaves you with peace of mind knowing your home is always being looked after. Our online catalog includes innovative home automation solutions that provide comfort and convenience. Want to keep an extra set of eyes around your house? Speak to one of our security experts today about our selection of surveillance cameras.

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