When buying houses, we all look out for areas in which we feel safe. After all, home life wouldn’t be much fun if you had to worry about break-ins each time you left the house. And, you would undoubtedly find it difficult to settle with your family in an area where your kids couldn’t play in the street. When you consider that, it’s no wonder location plays such a massive part in our house searches. When considering an area, it isn’t unusual to look into crime statistics and recent news reports. It’s the best way to get an accurate picture of the place. For the most part, these precautions ensure that we’re buying in the safest area possible.
But what if, after all your hard work and years of living in an area, the situation changes? Even a safe neighborhood can fall foul to a bout of crime, after all. If your neighbor, or a house a few doors down, experiences a break in, you could go from feeling safe to feeling fearful. So much so that you may even consider uprooting your family to somewhere far away. In truth, though, that’s rarely ideal. You’ve built a life for yourselves, and one security breach on the street shouldn’t mean giving that up.
Of course, you’ll want to do your best to be a good and supportive neighbor during this challenging time. If nothing else, situations like these can help bring a community together. But, you’ll also want to consider new ways to put your own family at ease. The good news is, an incident like this doesn’t have to mean feeling unsafe forever. All you need to do is follow these pointers.
Find Out The Details
Before jumping to negative conclusions about your neighborhood, it’s worth finding out exactly what happened. One break in doesn’t mean that you’re automatically at risk of the same fate, even if it happened next door. It may, for example, have been a targeted break-in. While still worrying, that means there’s nothing opportunistic about the crime. As such, it doesn’t necessarily have any reflection on your neighborhood as a whole.
Equally, knowing what happened is your best chance of ensuring the same thing doesn’t happen to you and your family. Small details, such as time of day, the method of entry, and items taken can help you protect yourself. If the thieves entered through an unlocked back door, for example, you could ensure you lock yours from now on. If they were after jewelry, you could invest in a safe or some other way to keep yours out of sight. Some break-ins also involve people going door to door, so it may be that you don’t open your door at certain times. Either way, knowledge of these risks is the only way to work past them.
Improve Your Home Security
If you’ve never had any issues in your neighborhood before, the chances are that security hasn’t been high on your list or priorities. After all, you’ve not needed to worry about that. Sadly, this fact could make your neighborhood prime pickings for thieves. Areas in which everyone leaves their doors open make the ideal break in spots for people on the lookout. That may well be why your neighbor was targeted in the first place. As mentioned above, knowledge of how the break-in happened can help you take protective measures.
But, it’s also worth taking things further to ensure you put your mind at ease. It’ll be near enough impossible to feel happy in your area again if you worry each time you leave the house. As such, you may want to head to sites like lifeshield.com, and invest in a home security system. With access to surveillance on your phone, it doesn’t get much better than this at ensuring you can rest easy. Setting an alarm each night will also ensure you don’t lose any sleep. And, if a security breach were to happen, this would make sure the police were alerted straight away.
Other than that, simple things such as locking your doors and windows will make a huge difference. It may not be the safe neighborhood existence you’re used to, but it’ll help for now. Why take risks when you don’t need to?
Try Not To Live In Fear
Though it’s easier said than done, it’s also important you don’t live in fear. Doing so isn’t going to help you, or make your house any safer. In fact, all it’ll do is bring misery to you and your family. On top of which, your kids will pick up on your fear and become distressed about the issue themselves. Once you’ve taken the necessary steps, it’s crucial for you to let go of that fear. While useful for ensuring you’re safe, it won’t do you any favors after you’ve done the above.
But, how do you let go of fear like this? For one, heading to sites like wakeupcloud.com could help you here. Generalised, points like these could go a long way towards helping you overcome the issue. It’s also worth spending time helping the neighbors in question get back on their feet. If you see them living without fear again, it’ll encourage you to do the same. Remember, even though a bad thing has happened, your neighborhood is still a good one. Take the time to look around at the things you love about it. Those things were there before the break-in, and they’ll be there long after. Don’t let your fear stop you from enjoying them.
It’s also worth ensuring the rest of your family aren’t living in fear. Children are especially susceptible to this kind of thing. They could be experiencing anxiety because of what’s happened. To overcome this, sit them down and talk with them. Let them know every security step you’ve taken, and reassure them that there’s no need to worry. If they can see that you’ve genuinely not worried, then there’s less chance that they will be.