Lock up your Home and other Good Advice before Going on Holiday

In all the preparations for your summer holiday don’t forget to take good care of one thing that isn’t going with you – your home! After enjoying a fabulous week or two away the very last thing you would want to return to is a burgled house.

If possible, leave your keys with a family member, friend or trusted neighbour and ask them to pick up any post to leave the doormat clear and therefore remove an obvious clue for would-be burglars to non-occupancy. Alternatively Royal Mail offers a service known as Keepsafe where your mail is held at the sorting office and not delivered between dates that you specify. For less than a tenner you can have the mail withheld for up to 17 days, but remember that you need to allow at least five days notice for the service to be set up.

If you still have milk delivered to your doorstep don’t forget to cancel it, and the same applies to any newspaper deliveries. There is no bigger clue to an empty house than an accumulation of full milk bottles outside the front door.

One of the most often made mistakes when leaving home for a holiday is to close the curtains. All this does is alert thieves to the fact that the house is empty. Leave your curtains open but do use automatic timers to turn lights on and off to give the impression of occupancy.

Home insurance policies cover non-occupancy of a property, but most for only a limited number of days, typically around 90. So, if you are leaving on an extended break ensure that your home will be covered by your policy.

Make it harder for any would-be burglars by ensuring that when you travel that you do not display your home address on any luggage labels. That is the equivalent of broadcasting to the world that you are leaving your home empty. Obviously, that doesn’t apply at the end of your holiday when you are checking in luggage for a flight home, but on outward travel only.

If the worst should happen don’t make it easy for burglars by leaving important documents, valuable items and credit cards that you may not be using within easy reach. Either hide them away, deposit safely off-site such as with your bank or with family members.

Lastly, before departing make sure the house is secured. As well as locking and bolting all the doors, make sure that if you have lockable windows that they too are locked and the keys hidden away. That particular piece of information is very important as if burglars do get access to your home leaving keys in the window locks will make it easier for them to exit the property.