Protecting Your Home While You’re on Vacation

With Memorial Day Weekend just around the corner and summer sneaking upon us, you may be ready to start planning some family getaways! While the idea of a vacation may conjure up feelings of relaxation, excitement, and peace, you might also be biting your nails at the thought of leaving your home empty and unsupervised while you’re away.

There’s no need to interrupt your stress-free vacation with worries about your home security. When it comes to keeping your home safe, it’s all about preparation. Here’s are some important tips for securing your house and property when you’re going out of town.

Get a professionally monitored home security system

We can’t stress this enough! While you may be tempted by “quick and easy” DIY self-monitoring solutions, they may not provide the same peace of mind as professionally monitored systems – especially when you’re far away and possibly off the grid. Home security services like Phoenix Systems offer round-the-clock monitoring, 24/7, so that if an alarm is triggered, the proper authorities are immediately notified so they can get to your home quickly. This is especially crucial if you’re out of town without great cell or internet service.

A truly smart home security system can and should also have fire and carbon monoxide detectors integrated so that if an emergency is detected, it will notify both you (via a push notification through the Alarm.com mobile app) and first responders.

Set up smart security camera notifications

When you’re on vacation, you likely won’t want to spend your time constantly checking your security cameras to see what’s going on around your home. Instead, with smart security cameras powered by Alarm.com, you can set up custom notifications to let you know if someone (or something) is hanging around your home. With Video Analytics technology, you can be immediately notified if a person, animal, or vehicle is detected on your security cameras, and the mobile app will send you a video clip to check it out. 

If you’ve already got your security camera notifications set up, now may be the time to revisit your settings. While you may not need to be notified about cars in your driveway in your day-to-day routine, you may want that heads up when you’re out of town.

Tell your neighbors and family

It’s always great to have an extra set of trusted eyes on your home. Before you head out for your vacation, let your neighbors or close-by family or friends know you’ll be away and ask them to keep an eye out for you. It’s also a good idea to ask them to collect any mail or packages that might be delivered while you’re gone. Nothing says, “nobody’s home!” like piled-up mail, and you don’t want any possible intruders knowing your house is empty. 

You might also want to consider setting up some temporary access codes for your trusted people with smart locks. This way, should you want them to go inside and make sure everything is okay, they’ll have their own code to enter, and it will expire at a set date and time.

Extra tip: If you’re not comfortable having other people collect your mail, you can place a hold with the post office so that they pause your deliveries.

Don’t tell the whole world

While giving some trusted friends a heads up is a good idea, you’ll probably want to hold back on announcing your getaway to the whole world. The fewer people who know your home is empty, the less vulnerable it is. Try not to blast your location status and vacation plans all over social media, answering machines, etc. While you may think that only family and friends will see it, it’s safer to not risk potential intruders finding out.

Lock up windows and doors

This is probably the most obvious, but it should still be said! Make sure to check ALL windows, doors, and possible entry points to your home before you leave. It’s also worthwhile to consider installing smart sensors that can be integrated into your home security system so that you can view all of these entry points at a glance, and make sure they stay closed while you’re away.

Extra tip: Have you ever gotten an hour into a road trip or flight and all of a sudden you can’t remember if you closed the garage or front door? Geo-fencing technology powered by Alarm.com is a great way to keep your peace of mind. Once you exit your set area, your system can automatically run a “scene” to lock everything up for you.

Get a video doorbell

With a smart video doorbell, you can answer your door even from miles and miles away! This is particularly helpful if, for example, you have a package being delivered. You can easily greet the delivery person and ask them to leave the package with your next-door neighbor, or you could even open up your smart locks and request that they leave it safely inside.

Leave some lights on

Remember, you never want to make it obvious that your house is unoccupied. So while you definitely don’t want to leave all the lights and electronics running, it may be a good idea to leave a porch light and/or hallway light on. With a smart home system, you can even schedule smart lights to turn on and off at certain times to simulate activity in your home!