What more can a homeowner want than ensuring complete safety of their children? They are the most precious things in our lives and need to be taken care of at any cost. In the wake of rising concerns about home safety, it has become imperative to childproof a home.

It doesn’t matter if you are a seasoned parent or new one, a handy guide to childproof a house is always helpful. It can become difficult at times to keep up with the advanced technologies that new home appliances come with. Even though we love buying them for our homes, we tend to forget that they come along with a bunch of health hazards that can lead to domestic accidents. Here are some tips that can help you make your home a better and safer place for your kids.

Make sure to unplug all home appliances

Electronic appliances can lead to dangerous repercussions when they are not cautiously handled. In case you are changing homes or bringing a newborn child into your home for the first time, you need to take care of a few things. Checking the settings of all household appliances and electric outlets must be among your priorities. The rule of thumb is to check if all your appliances are working properly. A wobbly coffee machine, an aggressive washing machine and a faulty iron indicate that you must get all your malfunctioning appliances replaced or fixed. Also, it is important to keep all appliances out of reach of small kids. You must keep all your electrical devices unplugged when they are not in use.

Restrict danger areas

We all are aware of the danger zones in our houses. They are the areas we would never want our children to find their ways into. Stairways, workshops, attics, swimming pools – these are some of the danger zones. For very small kids, baby gates should be installed to keep them restricted to safer parts of a house.

Store away harmful products

Our houses are cluttered with cleaning agents, chemicals, fertilisers for gardening and much more. Such products are potentially harmful for children. They must be stored away in closets and shelves rather than lying casually within the easy reach of children.

It would be foolish to believe that burglars are dumb. Most often, burglars are sharp-minded individuals, adept in invading even the most secure houses. Some of them would not even think twice before hurting any innocent crossing their paths when they are in the middle of burgling a house. Hence, anti-burglar tactics should never be planned casually.

Another misconception is that burglaries take place only at night. A house stands at a risk of being burgled whenever its occupants are out. Burglars often prefer invading a house with senior citizens since they have restricted mobility.

Most house owners try to make their houses as secure as possible. However, some of the tactics often backfire since burglars think two steps ahead. Here are the tactics that burglars usually use.

Luring dogs

Having dogs, safeguarding a house, often works. However, one must realize that dogs can be lured with food items like sausages. There have been instances when burglars have slipped rat poison or some other dangerous drug into meat and offered to dogs. Such events can be prevented by having dogs trained by professionals and teaching them not to accept food from strangers.

Monitoring the lights

Having a house lit up from inside may give an impression to outsiders that a house has occupants, but it is definitely not an economical idea. Also, burglars will be able to understand if the lights inside a house are on just for the sake of it if they see them on for an abnormally long time. So, it is recommended to use timer switch that would have the lights on every other hour. Installing a motion sensor is ideal since it switches on light when there is some kind of movement.

Using business flyers

It is not recommended to accept business cards or pamphlets from strangers. There have been instances when burglars have laced such flyers with chloroform or a similar chemical substance to make a person feel dizzy. That is how they can easily get inside a house, rob away valuable and steal cars.

Taking advantage of ‘Away’ messages

It is not wise to leave messages outside houses letting people know that you are away. Inform neighbours, relatives and friends over the phone about your plans.

Growing prominence of social networking sites has increased their significance in our lives. Updating statuses, checking in at places and uploading pictures are all a part of our lives now. While such activities may give us pleasure, they could also pose serious threats to the security of our houses.

The check-in feature offered on Facebook and similar features in other sites make our connections aware of our whereabouts in real-time. It takes no special sense to understand how risky this kind of information could be if leaked out to unreliable, criminal minds.

There have been plenty of gambits to spread awareness regarding the risks posed by such features. Everyone must go easy with tweeting pictures from their exotic getaway vacation or sharing weekend plans on Facebook. They can actually serve as perfect recipes for theft at your empty house.

Social media sure is a trendy way to stay connected with all your friends and relatives. One can still enjoy such features by adopting certain precautions.

Privacy settings

Every social networking site comes with this option. Facebook has tweaked its privacy settings a number of times lately, only to make it better and less complicated to understand. It is recommended to keep privacy setting to ‘Only Friends’ and not ‘Public’. Tech-savvy burglars would not find it difficult to hunt down your house once they spot any check-in information on your Facebook profile. Also, once a burglar finds you dumb enough to update a check-in ‘Public’ly, they will be tempted to pay your home a visit.

Tagging options

This is yet another feature that can pose a risk if you do not take precautions. Even if you are careful enough not to check-in in a particular occasion, your friends can tag you to a check-in post. This can easily be taken care of by turning on ‘Tag Review’ option on Facebook and make changes in your ‘Maximum Timeline Visibility’.

Friend list

Having school classmates, former and current colleagues and casual acquaintances on a Facebook friend list is pretty normal. Updating some of the most personal details of your life and sharing them with people, who you hardly talk to, can be a foolish way to use the social media platform. It is recommended to keep your friend list clean and updated.

It is a little hard to imagine our lives today without wireless technology. Wires are a thing of past and no more can we embrace the idea of having messy wires and internet cables in our lives.

Home security systems are no exception when it came to adopting the wireless technology. Such systems were previously dependent on wires. Every security part required wiring. Such wires were not reliable since they could easily be damaged by wire cutters.

Opting for wireless security systems to burglar-proof your home and office would be a wise idea. Such systems have gained huge popularity in recent times. So what is it all about?

We all are aware of the term ‘wireless’. It implies that there are no wires involved. Wireless technology in home security systems are tools that can interact wirelessly with the alarm system control component. The control unit of such a system is usually communicates with the outside world through a cellular network instead of an internet connection.

Most home security companies these days offer a choice for wireless security systems, since such systems have been receiving great reviews from customers and industry experts have been speaking high of such systems. However, few people are aware of cellular monitoring, which is a critically significant aspect in a wireless home security system.

A typical home security system, which is non-wireless, uses phone line of a house to send an alert notification to the monitoring station. Newer systems may implement the internet connection of a house to do this. Both these wired systems pose risks. Power outages are likely to disable a phone line. Internet connectivity often experiences glitches. Seasoned burglars are way too smart to fall for weak security systems as such. They snip the phone line before making a move.

A wireless home security system has solved such issues. Systems as such work with the help of cellular monitoring. The control unit has a built-in cellular signalling device, which it uses to send notifications to the station in events of emergency. The signal goes out over a range of sophisticated, safe cellular networks. Since such systems do not come with any wires, there is nothing burglars can do about it. Such systems are ideal options for homes that do not use landlines anymore.

The rich and famous individuals are normal people like others. Their profession puts them under spotlight all the time. While we would like to say that in a good way, it is not always that good. Grabbing attention of burglars could and has ended up in ransack of many a celebrity house.

In this article, we list some of the most popular break-ins at celebrity houses.

Bon Jovi

Everyone is aware of how Bon Jovi is fond of his outfits and jewelry. Not too long ago, a person named Tracy had managed to break into Bon Jovi’s home and went away with jewelry worth $100,000. However, Tracy was not smart enough and was caught shortly after the burglary. It was found out that Tracy and his group had taken a house nearby Bon Jovi’s $22 million estate to keep an eye on him and look for the right time to break in.

LL Cool J

One time LL Cool J was woken up from his sleep at 2.00 in the morning by some noise in the kitchen at his Los Angeles apartment. When he came down and found the burglar, both of them engaged in a fight. According to the statement of Sergeant Frank Preciado of the Los Angeles Police Department, LL Cool J was successful to have the suspect in custody with his physical strength.

Steve Jobs

One of the most interesting burglaries in celebrity homes is the one that took place in Steve Job’s house. The thief had managed to get his hands on Tiffany & Co. Jewelry worth $60,000, Cristal Champagne and Steve Job’s wallet. He also took off some of the iconic gadgets that Jobs had created, including Macs, iPhones, iPods and iPhones. He was caught the very next day with the help of the same technology that Jobs had helped in creating.

Nicolas Cage

Cage was once awakened by a naked trespasser. According to the statement of Cage, at 2 in the morning, he found a naked man wearing his leather jacket and eating Fudgesicle. Even though the incident did not lead to any injury or harm, it prompted the actor to look for another place to live.

It would be great to know the perspective of a burglar to understand his possible moves to ransack a house. This infographic reveals the bent of mind of the troublemakers.

Spread the word and help others to tackle with burglars better.

Irrespective of the image that we have of a burglar in our mind, he is really an average looking individual dressed in regular clothes, just like any of us. The average-looking person is, however, quite adept in breaking into a house, any house.

There is absolutely no time in a day when a home is immune from burglaries, since there is no standard practice that burglars follow. Most of burglary cases that were reported to the US Department of Justice in the year 2009 included forcible entry. 32.6% burglars were able to find an easy way, while the others tried foiled attempts.

The ideal way to handle burglars is to pre-empt their plans with confirmed preventive measures. Burglars often look search for or at times they make specific characteristics and situations to break into a house. One must be acquainted with such tricks to prepare themselves for a burglar-attack.

Find a perfect target – Homes with no sign of anyone returning anytime soon are usually perfect targets for burglars. Signs of life are likely to discourage burglars are strategic lighting, TV on timers, and homes appearing occupied during wee hours. Such tricks usually deter a burglar from entering a house. Lights must be on timers. 24/7 lights make it evident that a house is empty.

Find a hiding spot – Even during the broad daylight, it is possible for burglars to look for places to hide. Full-length shrubberies and thick trees near houses are perfect spots for burglars. It is best to keep shrubs trimmed from time to time.

Wait for a holiday time – Majority of burglars are extra cautious during the holiday season. Houses are particularly flooded with presents around Christmas. Burglars find this time perfect to attack.

Innovate ideas – Professional burglars have countless ways to pry on homes. They may set up events to pretend to be a cable installer, a pizza guy, or even a policeman. Home owners must ask for identification from any person who arrives at their doorstep.

Surf the internet – professional burglars work hard to stay one step ahead of the ones trying to catch them. It is incredible to know that even burglars have their own forums on the internet where they discuss tips and tricks to stay out of trouble.

It is not possible for a lay man to be acquainted with every kind of method that a burglar uses to break into a house. It is therefore recommended that homeowners invite a reliable security expert who is updated on the latest burglary methods to inspect their houses.