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Do you have a plan of action so you know what to do in the event you are broken into while at home?  I would venture to say that most people don’t!  However, it is a good idea to have a Home Security Defense Plan that includes a Safe Room in case someone forcibly enters your home while you and your family are there.  The general intent of a safe room is to provide short-term protection for the family members until the police arrive or the attackers leave your home.

It is a fact of life today that burglaries, home intrusions, home invasions, and kidnappings are happening at an alarming rate.  We are all encouraged to have a Personal Plan of Action in case we are attacked on the street but  we forget to have a well-thought out plan for some sort of attack in our home.

The very nature that someone would forcibly enter your home, especially while you and your family members are there, means the intruder is serious about burglarizing your home either for your possessions, valuables, money, or worse yet - kidnapping.   The fact that you are there and could identify the intruder means there is a good chance you may be harmed or even killed. Hopefully this situation will never happen to you, but in today’s violent crime ridden world my suggestion would be to take all necessary precautions to prevent it from ever happening to your family.  Don’t become a victim of this type of crime.  Be proactive in both your personal and home security plan of action.

To begin with take a look at your home for vulnerable places that a burglar or intruder might try entering.  If you think like a burglar, there’s a good chance you will see areas that you might have dismissed in the past as being secure, but now realize it could be easily accessed by a burglar.  Areas like doors, windows, locks, lighting, and shrubbery should be the main areas to consider reinforcing.  Update old locks with newer more durable locks that can give your door(s) the extra strength needed to endure a burglar’s kick or shoulder to bust it in.  

Your Home Security Defense Plan should include setting up a safe room, a defensive core area of your home and most likely the safest place for you and other family members to meet during a break-in or home invasion.  It is vital that you plan ahead of time what you and other family members will do in this situation.  If a break-in occurs while you and your family are home try to remain calm and retreat to your safe room, lock the door, and call the police for help.

The room you select may be the main bedroom in your home.  (Or it could be a main bathroom or closet location).  Whatever location you decide, check the doors to this room for strength and ability to withstand a major kick to bust open.  These doors, like your main entry door, should be solid hardwood or metal doors and have it hung so that it opens outward.  Replace the wooden doorjamb with a steel one or reinforce the door trim with steel angle iron to prevent the door from being kicked open.  On wood doorjams, install three-inch screws in the door hinges and in the heavy-duty, four-screw, lock strike plates that cut deep into the doorframe studs.  The interior doors in most homes are flimsy, hollow-core wood doors so you will most likely need to upgrade these doors.  You will also want to install quality deadbolt locks on the doors to your safe room.

If you have young children, infants or toddlers you may want to make their room the safe room.  It will be easier for you or other adults to retreat to the children’s room rather than to get the children out of their room and into yours.  You should follow the same instructions on their doors if you select your child’s room as the safe room.

Make sure the safe room is equipped with the following items:

•  A telephone for calling the police.  If possible, use a cell phone in your safe room.  Criminals can totally disable    standard wired phones and cordless phones simply by cutting the phone line to your home or taking on extension off the hook.  When you call 911, your billing address is displayed on the 911 screen, so remember to give your home address just in case it’s different from your billing address.
•  Remember that a cordless phone requires the base unit to be plugged into the standard phone line in your home.  If the phone line is cut or unplugged, your cordless phone is dead.  However, a cell phone transmits and receives signals through the air and doesn’t require standard phone lines.  You will just need to make sure it is always charged and ready for use.
•  A flashlight.  You may need a flashlight if the intruder turns off the power to your house.  Also, if it’s late at night you may want to leave the lights off anyway.  Ensure you have extra batteries or a fully charged rechargeable flashlight.
•  If there is a window in your safe room, keep an extra set of house and car keys* in that room.  When the police arrive, you can throw your house keys to the police from the window of your safe room.  (You may even want to have a glow stick to attach to your keychain in case you have to toss the keys out a night).  These keys will allow the police to quickly enter your home while you remain secure in your safe room.  Additionally, if you are able to escape, you will have your car keys available.
•  Personal Protection device(s) of your choice (permitted by law).  Pepper or Mace Spray, C2 Taser, Advanced Taser, and Stun Guns are all non-lethal protection devices that can provide some take down power-possibly enough for you to escape to safety.  If an intruder has made it this far into your home and is coming after you, he is intent on doing you grave harm.  You may have to use everything in your arsenal to save your life.  Remember at this point your main concern is saving your life and the life of any family member with you.   You can deal with the other stuff later.
•  A small folding ladder to escape out of a window if your safe room is on the second or third level, first aid kit, food, and water.

* If your car keys have an alarm button, you could activate the car alarm from your safe room. Noise is a deterrent and an audible alarm may alert the intruder/s to the fact that the situation is known to others.

After you have decided upon the location of your safe room and properly equipped it, finish developing your home security defense plan.   Discuss the actions you and other members of the family will take in the event of an intrusion or break-in. Make sure they understand what they are supposed to do and where they should go.   For example, one family member might be responsible for calling police while another person notifies the other family members to retreat to the safe room.  Have non-threatening practice sessions with family members and review it often.  Remind everyone that you are to refuse to come out of the safe room by the intruder and only when the police arrive.  Evaluate your plan from time to time and make any changes that are deemed appropriate.

One last suggestion to consider would be to install a good quality home security system that monitors your home 24/7 for any type of break-in or intrusion.   You’ll have a loud alarm going off inside your home as well as alerting the local police authorities.  You could have several remote panic buttons in various locations in your home to activate the alarm and notify authorities immediately if a threatening situation arises.  Keeping one in your bedroom near a nightstand means it is right there if you need it.

Having had a home security system for 22 years, I would never live in another home without one.  A 24 hour monitored security system can give you and your family a tremendous amount of peace of mind and fits perfectly into any Home Security Defense Plan.

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