5 Tips To Keep Your Home Safe When Traveling

Posted on by Marms 4 Comments

5 Tips To Keep Your Home Safe When Traveling

Taking a vacation and spending some time away from the responsibilities of daily life is something most everyone looks forward to. But, vacations are meant to produce relaxation not induce stress.

If leaving your home for a few days or weeks brings anxiety over its safety, you will spend more of your relaxing time concerned over your home’s safety. Instead, employ these four tips to keep your home secure, and enjoy your days of nothing.

1. Home Security System

Invest in a home security system. Not only will it bring security to your home while you are away, it ensures complete home security when you are living there.

A home security system comes with an alarm to alert the Security Company and authorities of a break-in, cameras, smoke detectors and motion detectors. Many homeowners sync their home’s security with their smartphone or tablet in order to keep an eye on their house from their remote location. For example, homeowners in Tennessee can access the Memphis ADT website in order to check on their home’s status and look at the camera footage.

2. Light Timers

Install indoor and outdoor light timers. A completely dark house for a long period of time looks suspicious, thus setting both indoor and outdoor lights onto timers gives the appearance that someone is home.

While there are manual timers that can be set before leaving, new technology allows users to control the lights in their house from wherever they are. While sunning yourself on the beach, you can quickly pull open your app, turn on your lights, and relax the rest of the day away.

3. Stop Your Mail And Newspapers

Nothing screams your house is empty like having newspapers, mail and packages stack up around your driveway or front door.

Call the post office and newspaper company and ask them to put your service on a temporary hold. Or, have a trusted friend, family member or neighbor come over to pick up the mail and check on how your house is doing.

4. House Sitting

In the event you will be gone for a while, consider asking someone to house sit. Many young couples, college students or friends will be willing to stay over for a few days or weeks in order to ensure your home is safe.

For those with animals, having someone come housesit is especially useful.

5. Do Not Broadcast Your Plans

While there is nothing wrong with celebrating over social media, frequent updates about your location, trip away or empty home make you an easy target for burglaries.

Any type of public social media such as Facebook, Instagram or Twitter can relate your absence to criminals looking for an easy target. Your best bet is to keep your posts to a minimum in order to protect yourself and your home.

Take the time to secure your house before leaving, because coming home to a robbed house will spoil any residual vacation relaxation.

Image Source: www.armornation.com

This is a Guest Post.

At The Visa Interview

Posted on by Marms 3 Comments

It was the day of my US visa interview at the US Embassy Manila.  A friend whom I met at the medical exams in St. Luke’s Medical Center had the same interview date and time as mine. We went very early (at the break of dawn) to the embassy so we can get in line first.

As part of their security system, one rule that is strictly implemented at the embassy is:  No cell phone allowed inside the building.  I assumed that everybody has a cell phone.  Some applicants have company with them so they had somebody to leave their cell phone with.  I did not have company.  As we entered the building, a security check was done and the security guard told me to leave my phone.  As far as I can remember, the guard took my cell phone and kept it somewhere.  I did not know if that’s a phone locker or something.

The Consul who interviewed me was not strict like I thought so.  He asked questions quickly and specifically.  His asking came one after the other as he ran  through every document in my folder. The interview went great and the K-1 visa application was approved.  One of the happiest moments of my life.

Dream Home

Posted on by Marms

Thanks to Roman May

Last month we moved into a house on the lake that is twice as big as our previous home. One would think that this home was custom built for us. It has all of the luxuries we always wanted in a home. We have a large sunroom with floor to ceiling windows. Our master bedroom is on the main floor and we have all of the cabinet space we could ever want. The main floor is very open and it is great for family gatherings. It has a great yard where we built a fire pit. My husband is obsessed with keeping the yard perfect. We have everything moved in and set up. The only thing we have left to do is have an alarm system installed. My husband told me he found one at besthomesecurity.com that he wants to get. It is really important to him that I feel safe in our home because we are much further from our friends and neighbors than we were in our previous home. I love our new home and I think we will probably retire here.