Survival situations come with a lot of variables that you have to consider. Everything from food and water storage to the clothes you have available to you and your transportation options can impact your ability to survive.
In your other preparations, have you spent much time thinking about security? Home security may be something that you overlook when it isn’t immediately necessary, but it will also be an essential part of survival if things start to go pear-shaped.
Here are 12 security mistakes you might be making, and more importantly, how to fix them so they don’t happen again.
1. Keeping an Outdoor Hide-a-Key
Leaving a hide-a-key outside, stashing your house key under the doormat, or in a nearby planter pot might seem like a convenient way to ensure you’ve always got a way to get into your house, but it is often one of the biggest security risks that anyone can invite.
All it takes is one person with ill intent to spot where you store your key, and suddenly they have an all-access pass to your home and everything within.
There are plenty of alternatives to leaving a hidden key outside your home, including smart locks or simply ensuring everyone who needs to access your home has their own copy of your house key.
Conversely, ensure you’re always home when someone needs to enter your property, and limit the number of people who have keys — and who could potentially lose those keys, creating a security risk.
2. Not Paying Attention to Landscaping
Landscaping the space around your home is a great way to improve your curb appeal, but this should also be designed with security in mind. Having thick foliage too close to your house creates a security risk by giving people places to hide and wait until you’re asleep or away from home so they can break in.
Carefully design your landscaping so there are no blind spots where people or other hazards could hide. This doesn’t mean you have to keep bare earth around your home, but opt for things that don’t obscure your vision or obstruct your line of sight, so you can keep security in mind.
Keep your bushes shorter than 2 feet high, so there is nowhere to hide, and keep everything well-trimmed and manicured. You may also wish to choose plants that grow slowly so you don’t have to maintain them as often or ones that only grow to a certain height before they stop.
3. Leaving Ladders Laying Around
Having a ladder or two in the garage or your backyard shed can be useful if you need to reach the roof or trim overhanging branches. But keeping them easily accessible means they also become a security risk. It might be inconvenient to have to retrieve your ladders every time you need them, but don’t leave them out.
Thankfully, the easiest way to solve this security problem is simply to lock them up when they’re not in use. If you don’t have a shed or garage to store your ladders in, something as simple as a bike lock can allow you to secure your ladders outdoors while keeping people from accessing them or using them to break into your home.
4. Cutting Corners With Doors and Windows
Whether you built your own home or are buying an existing property, doors and windows are among your biggest security concerns. Lightweight doors — especially those designed for interior use only — and single-pane windows may have been the norm for construction in decades past, but they’re not energy efficient, nor are they the best choice for home security.
If you own an existing property, take the time to upgrade your doors and windows. Also, plan to add heavy-duty latches for windows, and reinforcements for door frames. These won’t make it impossible to bust open a window or kick down a door, but they will make it more difficult — which will give you time to respond to a possible home invader.
5. Overlooking the Garage Door
When people start thinking about home security, they usually focus on the front door, but you need to think like a burglar. They’re not going to go through the front door as a first choice, not with so many other options available to them. Garage doors are useful, but their size and the fact that they are often unsecured can make them a security risk. This is especially true if you have an electric door opener but have disconnected the door from the motor in order to open it manually. Don’t overlook your garage door when you’re working on improving home security.
Don’t forget to lock your garage door. You may also wish to consider reinforcing and insulating your garage door to ensure it isn’t easy to breach, even if it’s only made of lightweight aluminum or other similar materials. Adding insulation to your garage door can also turn the room into a better option for storing your survival supplies by making it easier to control the temperature and humidity in your space.
6. Opting for Fake Security Cameras
There are far too many fake security cameras on the market that claim to be a deterrent simply because of their presence. It might sound like a good idea if all you’re worried about is the occasional opportunistic thief, but in a survival situation, when breaking into your home could mean the difference between life and death, a fake security camera — or a real one for that matter — isn’t going to deter anyone.
Security cameras are only as good as the system they’re attached to. If you’re going to opt for these cameras, turn them into something useful instead of wasting time and energy attaching what amounts to a wall decoration to the exterior of your home.
7. Leaving Things in the Dark
Darkness can be your ally if you’re trying to sneak through dangerous terrain, but when it comes to home security, that same sort of stealth can very quickly become the enemy. Pockets of shadow around your home become a security risk when they keep you from being able to spot anything or anyone who might be creeping toward your home, whether you’re home or not.
On most nights, moonlight will be more than sufficient for you to see anyone approaching your home, as long as you don’t have a lot of trees or other plants obstructing your line of sight. If you have access to electricity, from a generator or a battery backup system, you can also use electric lights to illuminate your property — but be wary. If the grid has failed, then having your property lit up at night will make you a beacon for friends and foes alike. Use your discretion, and don’t be afraid to rely on moonlight and other natural light.
8. Bragging About Your Supplies
As a survivalist, you likely have a substantial collection of supplies to help you navigate your way through a survival situation. This is a good thing if the world ends, but only if you can keep your mouth shut about it. Do you remember the story of the ant and the grasshopper? If you don’t, here’s a quick refresher: the ants spent the summer collecting food, storing it away, while the grasshopper played music and made fun of the ants for working so hard. When winter came, the grasshopper had no food and begged the ants for help, but they had only stored enough food for themselves, so the grasshopper starved.
Humans, once they become desperate, have no real limit to the kind of damage they’ll do to survive. If you brag about your supplies, you become a target for the grasshoppers among us, only these grasshoppers aren’t content to starve through the winter — and they come armed. Body armor will only take you so far, and if a bunch of grasshoppers band together to steal the food from the ants, there’s not a whole lot the ants will be able to do.
9. Not Changing Your Default Passwords
Incorporating smart devices and the internet of things into our survival shelters can help improve our quality of life, both before and after the end of the world. But there is one major security vulnerability when it comes to this sort of networked device: the password. Each smart device comes programmed with a default password. If you don’t change that password, anyone who knows the default password generated by the manufacturer will be able to access your device.
The easiest way to overcome this security challenge is simply to change the default password and update your passwords frequently. It’s important to note that this security tip only applies if the telecommunications infrastructure hasn’t collapsed. Smart devices only function if they have an internet connection.
10. Leaving Things in Plain Sight
We all own things that we’re proud of, some more valuable than others. Everyone decorates their homes differently, but the practice of leaving valuables in plain sight — especially if they’re visible from the windows of your home when the blinds are open — is a great way to make yourself a target for casual and professional thieves alike.
This isn’t to say you should hide your favorite belongings away in the back of a closet or keep everything under lock and key at all times. Instead, make sure you’re designing your interior decor in such a way that valuable objects aren’t showcased in the windows. This has a secondary effect as well: protecting your valuable items from UV damage while still allowing you to enjoy the benefits of natural light in your home when you open the blinds.
11. Letting Things Fall Apart
When you set up your home security system, it’s easy to get excited about all of the new toys and features. But once the novelty wears off, it can be a lot of work to maintain a secure home. Things might fall by the wayside, and you may find yourself with security features or system items that have fallen apart or ceased to function.
It might not sound like a big issue until you find yourself in a survival situation and you can’t order replacement parts online. Letting things fall apart, especially things you can’t repair yourself, could create an enormous hole in your security net. If you’re designing your home with security in mind for survival situations, make sure you’re maintaining the tools so they’re ready when you need them most.
12. Letting Your Guard Down
It’s easy to feel like you’re secure in your survival shelter, even after the world has ended. You’ve got your food and water, your supplies, your weapons, and nothing can touch you, so it’s safe to let your guard down and relax a little bit. Right? Unfortunately, letting your guard down, no matter how good your security system is, will set you up for failure. And in a survival situation, failure usually means death.
This doesn’t mean you need to be 100% on guard all the time, but you should be using your security tools and systems to help you stay safe. That means maintaining them, keeping your eyes open, and protecting yourself and your family first. You could live inside Fort Knox, and that is still no excuse to let your guard down if the world starts ending.
Stay Safe out There
Security is something that should be part of our daily lives, regardless of the situation outside the home. It can keep us safe from home invaders, thieves, and people who would do us harm. When it comes down to it, there are some terrible and dangerous individuals out there. If we find ourselves in a survival situation, that becomes even more apparent as we’re exposed to desperation and people who are fighting just as hard to survive as we are.
Take a closer look at your home or survival shelter and see where you might be making security mistakes that could potentially put your life at risk. You might be surprised by what you find, but it will allow you to make the necessary changes to keep yourself safe if things start to go pear-shaped. Stay safe out there, no matter what the universe decides to throw at you.
[Note: This was a guest post.]
Leave a Reply