The Fortress

Your home is your fortress. Time to treat it as such. We’re going to start this project with cheap security ideas that any of us can do, for a bit of extra protection.

I’ll spare you the details and videos, but home invasion style robberies are common now. Not just in the United States. While looking for a good video to post here, I immediately came across two home invasion videos out of Australia and one from Belgium.

Something I would like to stress is that there’s generally two endings to home invasions, and they’re geographically dependent. If you’re in an urban area, a home invasion is more likely. But it’s also more likely that the home invasion ends quickly, with the thieves working to get out of the house as fast as possible. In a rural area, home invasions are rarer, but the criminals loiter. Most horrific stories of torture, rape and murder come from rural home invasions, where the criminals can take their time. (Just look up South Africa farm murders, if you need a wake up call).

Either way, let’s build a castle.

When setting up a security plan for your home, you want to think in layers.

The first layer will be “deterrence”. Numerous crimes are born out of opportunity. Imagine two junkies driving through a neighborhood looking for a house to hit. They haven’t selected your home specifically, so if another house seems easier than yours, that’s the one they’ll go for.

In executive protection, it’s the concept of a member of the security team starting the car for the VIP. He’s not necessarily “taking one for the team” and putting his life on the line, to eat the car bomb for his employer. The concept is, if the VIP isn’t the one starting the car, then the terrorists won’t bother putting a car bomb there to begin with, it’s a deterrence measure.

Remember, we always work in layers. There’s never a magic bullet. Study medieval castle design and you get an appreciation for how much thought was put into layering defenses.

let’s start with signs. A good sign can be grabbed online or at any hardware store. “Security cameras in use” “alarm system”. You get the idea. If you actually get a home security system, they will include stickers and signs.

I selected a random suburb outside of Atlanta, Georgia and clicked street view. The very first house I landed on, had this.

You do your own research there, some signs are over the top, and too tacky, and dear God, do not get any sign that says “We shoot to kill ‘round hea!” Or any such nonsense. It just advertises that you have guns, and then the burglars actually start watching you, and wait for you to leave. Plus, you’re going to look extremely unhinged if a prosecutor shows that to a jury because you were forced to defend yourself.

Next are security cameras. Some people have an aversion to them because they’re also spy devices for big tech and the US government. I share this reservation, so I will share my super secret trick that nobody knows, except you guys now. I have real deal security cameras, that film what I want filmed. They’re in places I deem an acceptable loss of privacy. Other areas have fake security cameras. No one except me knows which ones work and which ones don’t. Some locations have camouflaged trail cameras, which films video to an SD card. It’s a gamble, as if they’re discovered, the thief can take the camera and the evidence, but I highly doubt it since I spent an hour last winter trying to find one I myself had placed…it was pretty well hidden, and needed a ladder to get to. I buy a trail camera or two every few years, so I’ve amassed a lot over the years. Some trail cameras are easily visible, a warning, “you’re being filmed”. While others are strategically hidden. When I first bought my property, all types of mushroom hunters and animal watchers would end up on my trail cameras, but once I made a few of them more visible, I haven’t seen a trespasser in years.

Fake cameras (I don’t use these, it’s just an example. I actually disabled the internals of some of my real cameras so the IR LED still glows, but it can’t record audio or video)

A trail camera will run you about $50, and they have trail cameras that run on cellular plans, (Moultrie) so for between $9-22 a month, you can have one or more trail cameras that alert your phone and send you pictures and video, if that’s an option you’re looking for.

The next item could be expensive if you want to go all out, and re-landscape your yard, but if you’re overgrown, and giant bushes hide burglars from the street, cut it back.

Your yard shouldn’t look like this… this is a dream for burglars…

It should look more like this… no where to hide.

Which brings us to lighting. I prefer motion sensors, and I aim one of the sensors at the street. Passing cars and people on foot should set it off. Anyone walking or driving by should notice that the dark hiding spots go away once they step near your property. It also lets people know that you might be more security minded than the next guy.

Further, I have some solar and battery powered motion lights. The reason I originally got them is so when I’m out in the woods, I could tie them to trees along paths and driveways where there’s no power. For example, I was camping in Utah and there was an outhouse at a secluded camping spot. Set up a motion light on the path, and at night no one’s stumbling in the dark looking for the outhouse. It also acts as a makeshift security perimeter for your campsite. I have them at home, and in a few minutes, I can have motion sensor security at my home, even if there’s a power outage.

(Check out Walmart, Home Depot, or Amazon, and get the ones with the best reviews. That’s what I did).

Two of the brands I use.

On the topic of lighting, let’s quickly discuss solar. Those inexpensive solar lights you see at Walmart, the higher end ones are actually decent. There’s a secret to solar lights though. They’re generally cheap because they stick the cheapest batteries in them.

If you get solar lights that run off of something normal, like rechargeable AA batteries, and get better batteries like Eneloop, their performance will be noticeably better. My little solar lights (4 of which I found for free at the dump) run all night until the sun comes back up.

I highly recommend spending some time on Amazon, checking reviews, and making a plan for Solar yard lighting, keeping in mind what I said about batteries. Get the ones where you can upgrade the batteries, or ones with reviews that say they hold up.

Side note, I brought all my solar lights inside during the last blackout and didn’t have to run one flashlight, candle, or lantern.

Okay, back to deterrence…

Light timers are a nice and cheap option. You can get those cheap at Walmart and set them up however you’d like. Be creative. One of my backyard lights in the shed, runs from sundown until 10pm then goes off until 4am, where it comes back on until the sun comes up.

Meanwhile I have an indoor vegetable grow room that has the lights run from 4am to 10pm. From the street it looks like a light is on in that room.

Be as creative as you like, but your house wouldn’t just “go dark” at bedtime until you wake up. There should be lights turning on and off throughout the night, and that should be visible from the street. If someone is cruising the neighborhood, and notices a light on that wasn’t on before, they get paranoid.

Next we’ll cover a device called the “fake tv”. It’s an LED light that projects as though there’s a television on in whichever room you place it. It gives the illusion as though someone is watching television.

A cheap option as well, is to leave a radio on inside your home, playing talk radio. Anyone who gets close to your house will hear what sounds like someone talking inside.

Everyone knows “get a dog” but if you’re in a rural area with a long driveway, how about one of these “beware of bees” signs for your gate? How about some bee boxes? Those would be easy to make. No one says you actually have to get bees.

If I were on foot, scouting properties, I would be a little more inclined to stay away from the driveway lined with beehives…and what do bees bring? If you’re in the right geographical location, bears. Maybe a beware of bear sign. Hell, make a sign “Beware of bees, our bees attract bears, DO NOT walk past this point.”

I’ll cut this one short and work in a series of articles, but for today the lesson is “deterrence”. Some of the stuff in future articles will overlap, but that’s how layers work.

So a recap.

Get some signs, get some cameras, even a fake camera. Set up some lighting to actually illuminate your yard and eliminate hiding places. Cut back on overgrown shrubs and the hiding places your landscaping affords. Setup some light timers so your house isn’t dark all night, run a fake TV, and/or leave a radio on to give the impression of people inside… and get creative.

A cheap way to deter the passive criminal from targeting your house.

More to come…