Crime Prevention And Home Defense

Crime Prevention Tips for Travel

This article from Security Today has some good basic tips for Crime Prevention on the road.  It's spring break time and a lot of folks will be traveling, whether to some beach resort for a week of regret, or simply across the state to Grandma's for Easter lunch, on the road is no place to let your guard down.  The article has some "duh" tips, but a lot of Crime Prevention is really just that anyway. 


Intruder in the House

Now I don't know about you, but when I need the latest in tactics and advice for responding to an intruder in my home, I turn to the authoritative source, Reader's Digest.  I've always planned to deal with an intruder by protecting my wife and me with a armed response and tactical lighting.  Well, according to this article in the latest RD, my thinking has been wrong.  It's a very short article, so I'll just post it here:

Don’t turn on the lights, says Mark Safarik, a retired FBI profiler. That will diminish your night vision. Plus, if you’re near a window, a potential intruder will be able to see you and know instantly where you are. Instead, dial 911 immediately. Then, if you can, find your car’s remote entry device and press the panic button. It’s capable of triggering the alarm from a distance of some 30 to 60 feet, and the loud noise may well frighten the intruder away.

All kidding aside, the old car alarm trick really isn't a bad idea if you have your car keys beside the bed and you have a fob-activated alarm (believe it or not, my Honda Element is the first car I've ever owned that had a key fob).  But I am also real confident that an armed response is necessary for dealing with a home intruder.

Reader's Digest also has this more useful article with some good suggestions for improving the security of your doors.  You know, most people think of securing their exterior doors with deadbolts and long screws and such, but there is good argument to be made for upgrading your bedroom door to exterior quality and making it just as secure.  Depending on your home's layout and if you have children, it might also be good to install such a door on a hallway or staircase leading to the bedrooms.

Listen!  You Smell Something?

Remember that episode of Friends where Ross is ineptly flirting with the pizza delivery girl and tells her that natural gas is really odorless and they add the rotten egg smell to it?  Do you know what caused them to start adding the smell?  I just found out...

I found this information from the Naval Post-Graduate School's Homeland Security Digital Library.  Seventy-five years ago last week, an unscented natural gas leak at the New London Consolidated School in New London, Texas exploded, killing between an estimated 300 - 400 students and teachers.  The really don't know how many there were due to all the migrant oil field workers in the area.  Legislation was quickly passed requiring the addition of the rotten egg scent that we all know.