Preventing burglaries: Home security expert discusses ways to keep your home secure
A professional home security expert spoke with FOX 11 about ways to secure your home and best prevent a burglary.
Jeff Zisner, the President and CEO of Aegis Security and Investigations, conducted a home assessment on a home in the San Fernando Valley Tuesday.
"Conducting a home assessment with a quality, professional security expert can probably save you money just by avoiding something from happening and it costs less than an insurance deductible," said Zisner.
Zisner said the assessments start outside.
"We start with the perimeter and work our way all the way to interior, to closets, safes, and it goes as deep as looking at insurance policies," he said.
He pointed out some important factors for the exterior of a home.
"Having good fencing, good locks, defensible perimeters in terms of foliage, that all helps a lot but if we can have cameras, alarms, censors that identify when they're tripping those perimeters, intercept them, then we're able to stop them in their tracks. The first thing is to have a security plan, making sure you're setting your alarm, making sure you're checking your camera system but also using those systems in a regular way so you're familiar with how they operate," said Zisner.
Zisner said foliage should not be easy to walk on and should be used as a deterrent to burglars. He said lighting on the exterior is important too.
"This home [in the San Fernando Valley] is very much missing exterior lighting. If I were to do an assessment on this home tonight, I would ask for lights on at least two of these corners and potentially one over the door as well and these lights to be motion-activated and to be used with censors to determine whether it's light or dark," he said.
He said ADT signs in the yard can help along with other tactics like cameras, and motion censors.
"These signs are obviously helpful. They let the bad guy know this home is protected by something," he said.
He said to prevent mail theft, mailboxes should be secured. He said homeowners can also give delivery drivers instructions on where to put a package.