Prepping your house or apartment for unwanted guests is something you should worry about right now. You don’t have to wait any sign of the Apocalypse to know that a bad guy can break in your home unannounced, take your valuables and even kill you if you stand in his way.
In fact, I could show you videos and articles with victims who didn’t even try to stop them and STILL got hurt. But my goal is not to scare you. What I want to do is give you practical advice to avoid such tragic accidents from happening.
Do a good job and you can build on these preps to prepare for serious home invasions, not at all unlikely in a society that could descent into chaos.
Consider metal doors and door frames. These will be much harder to kick. Of course, no metal can protect you if you don’t take basic precaution measures, such as keeping your door locked at all times.
Analyze every entry point inside your home and take measures. If someone wants to get in, they will find a way. Now, I’m not saying they’ll dig a tunnel all the way to your living room; they won’t be that motivated. But if there’s even a small window, they might take a chance, particularly if they know you’re hiding a lot of preps and valuables. What they can do in these cases is get a small child to fit through the window sneak into the house, then open the door for them.
Don’t leave anything out. Check:
- attic doors
- basement windows
- garage door
- door leading from your home to the attached garage
- pet doors
- …and any other doors and windows you may have
Speaking of which, you should just remove that pet door if you have it… There’s just no way to properly secure it.
Plexiglas is your friend, especially if you have glass doors. This will cost you, sure, but having a glass patio door is extremely risky. And if you’re serious about prepping, you can forget Plexiglas and install metal doors, no matter how unattractive your home may look. Consider installing Plexiglas windows everywhere (in time, that is).
Consider protective furniture. This has been previously discussed here at Prepper’s Will. There are many couches, coffee tables, shelves and so on, that serve a very noble purpose: to keep you and your family safe.
One of the challenges we have as preppers is hiding our stuff, right? Some folks who couldn’t care less of what others think, go as far as removing their bed frames, replacing them with #10 cans and then sleeping on them. This obviously results in awkward moments when friends and relatives see them.
This is why protective furniture is great: it’s been designed from the start with survival in mind. For example, the couchbunker (the first item mentioned in the article) has plenty of room to hide your rifles, as well as bulletproof cushions.
Related article: Home Defense on a budget
Set up windows stops. This one is easy. Window stop won’t allow your windows to open more than 4 to 6 inches, making it impossible for a burglar to get inside. It’s one of those things that are cheap to set up but one day, they could save you a fortune.
Remove bushes and tree branches from doors and windows. This way, burglars won’t use them to hide as they’re trying to get inside the home through the window. Of course, there are more factors to be considered here… for example, if you think you’ll experience heat waves, then those branches could provide much-needed shade, but one way to overcome that would be to install while sheets or even aluminum foil when the time comes.
Get a good safe. OK, so this will set you back at least 500 bucks, but the technology involved is obviously not cheap. Even if your house is visited by 3 or even 4 burglars, they probably won’t carry the whole thing out of your house, particularly since opening it will be nightmare. Remember that burglars spend, on average, 8 to 12 minutes inside a home and they usually take things that are easiest to grab… However, if they came for your the safe specifically, they can use a sledge hammer and other tools to open the cheaper ones.
Liberty and Fort Knox are good brand choices for safes.
Final Word
Well, I hope this article didn’t bore you. Most pieces out there that tackle home security offer the same tired advice everybody’s sick of. If I gave you one good idea in this article, then I’m happy. And now it’s up to you to put it into practice.
Self-sufficiency and Preparedness solutions recommended by our readers:
SPEC OPS Shooting (A Green Beret’s guide to combat and shooting and active shooter defense)
Bullet Proof Home (Learn how to Safeguard your Home for when SHTF)
The LOST WAYS (Survival things our grandparents did or build around the home)
US Water Revolution (A DIY Project to Generate Clean Water for your home)