The Shaker of Salt

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Sharing your home with unwanted guests is never nice, especially when those guests are a different species. Insects and other creepy crawlies thrive in the modern home. With carpets to live in and pets to feed on, your living spaces could be the perfect home of a tiny invader. Dealing with pests isn’t easy, though. When you have an infestation, you have to take careful steps to get rid of it. To help you out with this, this post will be going through a basic guide to help you in removing any uninvited residents in your home.

To start on this mission, it’s a good idea to identify the source of the infestation. In most cases, this will either be a pet, uncleaned waste, or a nest somewhere in the home. Most insects and bugs will return to the source once in awhile, dropping off the resources they collect. A great example of this can be found in ants. Most species of this hardy insect will for strict lines of workers, pointing in the direction of their nest. By simply following them, you should be able to find their origin. If you have fleas or other pet-related parasites in your home, the animal is likely to be the source.

Once you have a good idea of where the intrusion is coming from, you can start to take steps towards removing it. For dangerous insects, like wasps and bees, it’s worth hiring a professional to take of the issue for you. With smaller issues, though, like fleas on your cat, you can use Advantage II for cats from Walmart or similar products to get the job done. Always read reviews when you’re choosing a service or a product to remove pests from your home. Some products won’t be as effective as others, making it vital that you do some background hunting before you spend your money.

Of course, getting rid of the source may not be enough to remove the pests from your home completely. Insects and bugs are usually very resilient. It only takes a small group of eggs to trigger a fresh infestation. In most places, you can buy special sprays to coat the floors of your home with. These sprays will kill pests before you ever see them, while also destroying their eggs, too. This sort of product can be very harmful to your pets, though. So, it’s worth making sure that they are well away from the spray as you use it.

Finally, with all of your little pests under control, you’ll probably want to do some cleanup. It’s not worth leaving anything to chance when you’re dealing with home invasions. Instead, you should thoroughly clean throughout your home, with a focus on the areas the pests came from. Along with this, if you’re invasion came from the outside, you may also want to find ways to secure your home from future threats. This can be achieved by filling in gaps in walls and making sure windows are sealed.

Hopefully, this post will give you a good idea of what needs to be done when you’re dealing with pests in your home. It can be very hard to resolve this sort of issue, with a lot of creepy crawlies being very resilient. But, if you take the right steps, it will be a lot easier for you.

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Painting anything can be quite a lengthy process if you don’t know what you’re doing! You have to make sure you make the proper plans before you dive right into it. If you don’t then you’ll end up damaging things and ruining the paint itself, and this goes for everything, whether it’s indoor or outdoors! But if you keep reading, you’ll not have to wonder any longer about how to properly prepare for painting a room.

Cover Up Everything You Don’t Want To Paint

Paint gets everywhere. Anyone who has ever used it will be able to tell you that somehow you’ll find paint lurking where you thought it never could! You might think that it sounds ridiculous, but it is true! This is the very last thing you want to happen, especially if you’re painting inside. You do not want paint to get onto any of your furniture or on your carpet because you’ll never be able to get it out! Getting dust covers from places like homedepot.com is a cheap and effective solution for covering up everything you want to stay safe, preventing any unwanted damage! Of course, the cover itself will be ruined if something gets on it, so you may find yourself throwing it away once you’re done with it but this doesn’t matter as they’re not expensive and easy to find.

Make Sure You Like The Color Before You Start

This is something a lot of people actually overlook. Paints look different in the pot to when they’re actually applied to walls, so you have to remember that, in some cases, the pot color will be different to the way it actually shows up on your wall. It’s important that you buy a small pot of the paint you’re planning to use before you  commit and paint a whole room with it. All you need to do is paint a few coats of it on a very small section of your wall to see if you like it or not! This saves you the hassle of realizing that you don’t like your paint when you’ve gotten halfway through doing your room!

Give Your Paint The Correct Treatment

This goes more for outside painting than anything but can still apply to indoors. Paint is frail and will come off or get damaged if it doesn’t have the proper treatment when it’s put down! This treatment mainly comes in the form of oils that you put onto the paint after it’s been applied and dried, ensuring that the coat stays nice and fresh for many years to come. You can buy a huge range of them from https://www.realmilkpaint.com/category/oils/ giving you the choice to buy what treatment will suit your paint!

It is advisable that you do all of these things when you’re painting to ensure that everything goes as smoothly as possible! You don’t want your  hard work to go to waste, so prepare and treat your paint properly to avoid anything bad from happening. Painting is also part of doing up a kitchen, and is often one of the most difficult areas to decide what you’re going to do with, but if you read this you can start getting some ideas off the ground!

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You’ve probably noticed, while visiting the homes of your friends, family and colleagues, that everyone has different taste in decors and furnishing. There are as many home setups as there are people to live in them, and little nuances of taste embed themselves in places sometimes obvious to see, sometimes more difficult. However, in the modern technological age, all of these homes could benefit by installing some of the most important tech trends that prove to revolutionize the way we consider our homes, and save us time, energy, and money in the process.

It’s likely that in 50 years time, most people will have a ‘smart property,’ a property connected to the internet, in which its systems automate and take care of the standard chores a homeowner usually has. Until that point though, we have the satisfying effort of maintaining our homestead to truly call our own, while trimming the decors with these tech trends that don’t impede the natural character of our properties.

Solar

Solar panels are getting stronger and more relevant in a world conscious of its effects on the environment. Despite all the chaos you hear about climate change from the news cycle and how climate change is currently being treated politically, that does nothing to impede the revolutionary progress made by renewable energy firms.

The renewable energy sectors have a rapidly increasing workforce, and new technological discoveries are being made all the time. This is relevant and encouraging news, because it means that there has never been a better time to install solar power panels on your property. In some cases, you can actually have your installation subsidised, but you might find there could be a time limit on this. Regardless, solar panels are a great investment, and will pay for themselves for years and years to come. It’s the one implement you can add

Smart Appliances

Smart appliances are the latest trend in home tech, and for good reason. They imbue your property with a sense of convenience, without adding any other installations that impeded how your home is set up. All you have to do is replace an appliance for a smart appliance, and the process is finished. For example, smart fridges allow you to view the temperatures and craft shopping lists on your screen.

This could be a smart security system, which when implemented can record footage, send the police your alarm logs, and also give you keycard access to your own home. However, you needn’t install something so all-encompassing and large as these appliances. It could simply be smart speakers, in which dictating to your room what genre of music you’d like to hear, which automatically syncs with your Spotify or Google Play playlist can be the strongest way to get a party or relaxing session going.

Making sure that your home is up to date and allows you to take advantage of modern tech can help you feel relevant and up to date with the modern world. No matter who you are or what your taste was, the relatively unintrusive means of installation allows you to keep on top of the character of your properties home. What could be better?

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We spend all winter moaning about the cold weather and wishing it was warmer, but then when the summer arrives, and temperatures start to rise, we start to wonder whether the colder weather is better after all. We love the warmer summer weather because it allows us to spend more time outdoors having fun and being more active. However, when you are sat at home baking, that’s when you may begin to detest the warmer weather.

The good news is, it doesn’t have to be this way. The fact is that there are plenty of ways that you can beat the heat when at home, it’s just a case of knowing what steps you need to take to do that. By finding ways to keep yourself and your little ones (if you have any) cool while at home in the warm weather, you will be able to make the most of the sunshine and not spend the summer wishing it was winter.

So, with that in mind, the question is, how can you ensure that your home is summer ready and that you are able to beat the heat? For all the best hacks for beating the heat at home, read on.

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Find ways to keep the heat out

The key to keeping your home cool in warmer weather is keeping the heat out, to begin with. The homes that tend to be the most affected by hot weather are homes with a lot of glass in them, which tends to be a lot of modern homes. By keeping the heat out, you can prevent your home’s temperature from rising, making it more bearable to spend time in. The question is, how should you go about doing this? If you’ve got an old home, one that’s built out of thick brick and has few windows, then the chances are that even in the warmer summer weather, it will stay cool. However, if your home has more glass in it and is built out of thinner materials, in the warmer weather, it will most likely get too hot. To keep your home as cool as possible, window tinting could be one option that’s worth considering. Especially, if you are able to get your windows tinted with Thinsulate – a type of insulating film that prevents heat from passing through it. If window tints aren’t an option, perhaps investing in blinds could be a good option to help keep your home cooler. Of course, you could just shut the curtains and keep them closed, but no one wants to spend the day in the dark, do they? So window tints or blinds could be a better option.

Be smart about home cooling

Obviously, you want to keep your home cool, especially if you have little ones to think about, but the question is, what’s the most cost-effective and environmentally friendly way to do that? Air conditioning is one way to keep your home cool; the only issue is the fact it uses a lot of energy, which comes with a high price tag and can have a huge impact on the environment. To keep your home cool, without breaking the bank or damaging the environment any more than necessary, what you want to do is implement a smart air conditioning system which can be set to only come on in certain rooms at specific times and can be managed via a smartphone app from anywhere. That way, you aren’t wasting energy cooling areas of your home that aren’t in use and can turn your air conditioning on before arriving home. If air conditioning is too expensive to run, how about going DIY and using fans and buckets of ice to cool your home? By placing a bucket of ice in front of a fan, you can create a DIY air conditioning system.

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Utilize your garden

For those days when it’s baking, you want to be able to cool yourself and your little ones down without having to go to the local pool or hit the beach, because usually these places are rammed. The answer to cooling down at home is simple: utilize your backyard. Whether that means investing in a blow-up pool, creating a slip and slide, having a water fight, or building a swimming pool or pond, it doesn’t matter, just as long as you can cool down. If your garden is large enough and you and your kids love to swim, building a pool or swimming pond could be a great idea. If you are environmentally conscious, a swimming pond is probably a better option. Believe it or not, these can be just as clear as traditional swimming pools but are free from chemicals, and so, aren’t harmful to the environment. Plus, they tend to add value to properties and fit more seamlessly into outdoor spaces because they look more natural.

Keep cool at bedtime

By far the worst time of day when it’s hot is bedtime. Sure, as the evening goes on, temperatures do start to drop. However, that doesn’t mean that your home is as cool as you would like it to be when bedtime comes around. To make sleeping well in hot weather easier, there are some handy hacks that you should consider utilizing. These include taking inspiration from the Egyptians who would sleep with damp sheets on their bed, to help keep them cool, using only cotton bedding and cotton sleepwear, and investing in products like the Chillow – a pillow with a specialist cooling pack built into it. There’s nothing worse than not being able to sleep because of the heat, which is why knowing how to keep your home, and you and your children cool, is so important.

The fact is that you don’t want to spend the entire summer wishing the warm weather away, as you want to be able to get outside and enjoy it. That is why knowing how to keep your home and family cool is so vital so that you can make the most of the warmer weather.

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How many times have you decided to it’s time to move? How many times have you actually moved, telling yourself that you want a change or that you want something new? For many people, one of the main reasons to move is because of their home. Perhaps their garden is way too small for their liking or maybe the proximity to local amenities like stores and markets is a little far. However, this article will explain to you very bluntly that you don’t actually hate your home—you’re just being lazy.

Moving home comes with a lot of problems and costs that will ultimately eat up your funds faster than if you just paid some attention to your home. Here are four signs that you’re just being lazy with your current property and that you don’t really need to move.

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1. There’s no such thing as the perfect home, so stop trying to look for it

Far too many people move around the country in search of the perfect home, but here’s a newsflash: it doesn’t exist! You can continuously move home, but you’re always going to find things that will put you off living in your next property. Perhaps the garden isn’t the right shape, maybe one of the neighbours is too loud or perhaps you’re a little too far from public transport. Whatever it is, it’ll ruin your dreamy experience and make you feel like moving again. Here’s a tip: learn to live with it! Nothing is perfect, so stop searching for the perfect home.

2. Just because you’ve suffered a disaster, doesn’t mean you can’t clean it up

House burned because of a fire? Infestation ruining your structure? Flood destroyed your carpets? Don’t worry, there are people that have been through worse. Services like ServiceMaster Restoration by Zaba are designed to help you restore your property to its former glory, so stop using the disaster card as an excuse to change homes, just live with it and pay the money required to fix it.

3. Renovations can pretty much change anything that you want, so invest in them

There are plenty of renovations you shouldn’t do, but there are also some very cheap and practical home improvements you can invest in such as upgrading the kitchen, adding more storage space or improving your bedroom to add more comfort. If you dislike certain parts of your room, then simply change them instead of replacing your entire house!

4. Do you really want to change your commute or force your children to change schools?

Moving home comes with many advantages, but the number of disadvantages associated with it can sometimes make you wonder why you’d even bother in the first place. For instance, changing home could mean that your children are too far from their current school or that you might even need to find a new job. In short, consider the effects of moving home before you decide to do it, because you may end up putting more things at risk than your comfort.

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When you are undertaking a renovation, it’s very tempting to go for the quick fixes rather than the bigger issues, but this isn’t the right attitude if you want to sell your home. The fact of the matter is that when it comes to selling your home, it needs to be the best you can make it because that is what will get you the biggest return. There are varying factors that will dictate what is worth fixing before selling your home, such as the time of the year and where your home is located. But while there is no hard and fast rule, here are some things you really need to address if you want to sell that home for a good price.

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The Roof And Exterior

There is no simple way around it, if your home needs a new roof, you have to pay for one. Most buyers will tend to shy away from a property if the roof needs to be replaced as it’s quite a cost up front, but there are plenty of roofing companies you can find online. You can get help at www.fredericroofing.com by requesting an estimate for your roof to be fixed as well as if your roof needs new gutters. While a brand new roof may not increase the value of your home, you still need to bite the bullet and do it because it will open up the amount of potential buyers.

Your Bathrooms

The main thing about making a bathroom presentable is by removing the limescale which can show up (especially if you have a white bathroom). While you should do your best to remove as much unsightly staining as you can, if it’s an impossible job to get the glass fixtures or shower door clean you may wish to consider replacing them as the overall costs aren’t much in the grand scheme of things. If you’ve got a small bathroom consider painting it a lighter color to make it appear bigger and avoid carpets at all costs!

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The Kitchen

This is one of the things that will clinch the deal for many buyers, so it’s vital that you have cabinets and fixtures that are up to date. Or if you are unable to afford to replace the cabinets you could resurface them instead by attaching a thin veneer, or you may wish to paint them a more contemporary color, sites like www.goodhousekeeping.com have sound advice on painting if you don’t know where to start. The sinks and faucets will be something that potential buyers will spot also, so make sure they are sparkling and not leaky.

Flooring

Hardwood floors are the most desired feature for houses now, so it’s worth pulling up that carpet and refinishing the floors to give it a shine. But if your floor is unsightly or needs a carpet, then opt for a carpet with a light tan color.

These are big things you need to address before selling your home, and in addition to these, it’s always best to make sure the house is as neutral as possible in terms of style, so try and avoid putting your own personal stamp on it where you can.

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We are all trying to keep up with the times when it comes to renovating our homes, and whether we are doing it for financial gain, or we are trying to make our living space better for the environment, there are consistent things that crop up time and time again. When it comes to attempting to renovate your own home and here are a few things to bear in mind.

Purchasing Cheap Materials

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This is one to think about if you are renovating your property for the purposes of renting it out to people. Ultimately at the end of the day, you will get what you pay for, so if you can’t afford decent property materials right now, it’s best to wait until you can because purchasing cheap knock-off items will mean that you’ll end up replacing it in a year’s time anyway. So why don’t you purchase good quality materials that last for years?

Not Updating The Electric System

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A lot of people will tend to avoid updating the electrics because they are costly but also it’s something you can’t see, but it’s this attitude that will require an electrician further down the line! It’s best to make the most of businesses that are used to rewiring electrics as part of a renovation such as Electrical Connection services who can discuss the find details of where you want your new outlets placed, also making sure that everything is up to code and complies with the current electrical regulations.

Using The Wrong Type Of Paint

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Another common mistake is that people think they can just get one type of paint that will suit every wall in the house but in fact, there’s a different type of paint for nearly every surface. If you paint every wall in your home with the same kind of paint, it doesn’t add any density or character, and especially if you go for a plain color like white, it doesn’t attract people, which is important if you intend on selling your property. Think about using flat for your ceilings and possibly your walls, and things like semi gloss for the trim in a bathroom or dining room.

Trying To Be Too Modern

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Everybody tries to be as up to date as possible, but in trying to be too trendy, it can be a big mistake. If you look back at the houses of the 1970s or 80s with those horrible beige colors they look out of place now, so bear this in mind if you want to stand the test of time it’s best to avoid the temptation of going trendy and hip and now.

Taking Incorrect Measurements

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You may think it doesn’t make much of a difference, but an inch or half an inch difference in your dimensions could mean that you aren’t getting the proper effect and look that you really want out of your new home, and if you’re going for symmetry everything will look somewhat wonky and off-kilter, which isn’t appealing at all!

Renovating your home is a big task, and so you need to make sure that you are avoiding the big mistakes!

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People all over the world have a relationship with wine that dates back centuries. It’s used in everything from religious ceremonies like Holy Communion to the Mexican papago tribe’s ritualized cactus wine drinking ceremonies. We use it in our social lives to celebrate births and weddings as well as to drown our sorrows after a bad day or unwind after a hard day at work.

Wine connoisseurs may plan entire vacations around the imbibing of wine, while college students might try and impress their buddies by chugging it back like soda at a frat party. Adventurous gourmands may use wine in cooking to enhance the food’s flavors while some may simply prefer to savor the wine with almost ceremonial reverence, using the kind of wine decanter on TheWineAerator to allow the wine to breathe.     

However you prefer to enjoy your wine, here are some unexpected household uses that you might find for that not-quite-glassful the morning after.

Turn bad wine into good vinegar

Nobody wants to drink wine that’s gone on the sour side. However homemade red wine vinegar is easy to make and the health benefits can be palpable as you remove the alcohol while maximizing the antioxidants. It’s more than likely to taste nicer than store bought vinegars, too. Simply pour the wine into a glass jar with a cup of vinegar and leave it for a few days. Hey presto, cheap and healthy red wine vinegar!

Pour a glass of red in the bath

Red wine is rich in antioxidants that don’t have to be ingested to be beneficial to your health. They can soften and repair damaged skin. Next time you’re about to reach for the bubbles or bath salts, try adding a glass of red wine to your bath and soaking way to softer skin.

Use white wine as a chemical-free cleaner

Many homemakers know that white wine can be used to blot out red wine stains on carpets and upholstery, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to white wine’s cleaning uses. Its combination of alcohol and acidity give it natural disinfectant properties that equal those of harmful chemicals, making it a baby safe way of cleaning glass and kitchen surfaces.

Use red wine to dye old clothes

Anyone who’s ever spilled a glass of red wine can testify to its staining power. The colour in darker wines can permanently affect virtually every type of fabric making it perfect as a natural dye. Take old light colored clothes and experiment with different concentrations as you can dye your fabrics a range of colors from light pink to dark red.

 Upgrade your compost

Even the compost heap is partial to a snifter every now and then. A bottle that’s gone really bad can serve a useful purpose when added to your garden mulch. The sugar content in wine encourages the propagation of bacteria in a seemingly sterile compost heap while also keeping it moist.

It’s incredible how versatile your favorite tipple is around the home, though after all that cleaning, fabric staining and gardening… you’ll probably want to settle down with a glass of wine!

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There are a lot of things that you generally have to think about when moving into a new home. In fact, there are so many things to think about that it’s often pretty overwhelming. There’s a good reason why moving house is often ranked as one of the most stressful things that you can do in your life. However, one problem that a lot of people run into is that they spend so much time and energy focusing on the big picture aspects of buying or renting a new home that they forget to think about some of the smaller, but no less important details. To help you avoid falling into that trap, here are a few of those smaller details that you might want to think about.

Internet

There was a time when the internet was considered by many people to be something of a luxury. However, thanks to the rise of smartphones, affordable PCs, and high-speed broadband, the internet is now as much of an expected part of people’s home life as a TV or a washing machine. However, if you’re planning on moving to a new home, then it’s a good idea to check out what the internet speeds are like in that area. The last thing you want is to move somewhere only to discover that it takes ten minutes to load a single web page. This is an especially big problem for those who work from home and need the internet in order to make a living.

Utilities

The main cost that people tend to think about when they’re choosing a home is that of the rent or mortgage payments that they have to make. However, while they are incredibly important, those are far from the only payments necessary. You should also think about things like electric rates and other utilities. Different properties have different costs depending on things like size, construction materials, and a host of other factors. Make sure that you take all of that into account when you’re looking for a new home.

Noise

Here’s a tip when you’re house hunting: visit the property at night. Why? Well, it’s not just to see how picturesque it looks in the light of the street lamps! Far too often people visit homes during the day, and the area seems quiet and pleasant, only to move in a discover on the first night that you need ear plugs just to get to sleep. Whether it’s neighbours having a party, a nearby railway line, busy roads, or any other factor, it’s important that you know exactly what the noise situation is at any property before you even think about moving in.

Now, this is not to say that the big picture stuff isn’t incredibly important, of course, it is. But as long as you make sure that also focus on some of the smaller details as well, you’re going to be that much less likely to end up experiencing some nasty surprises further down the line.

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Everyone’s home is their castle, and so it’s important to treat it as such. Moving your family into a new rented space or property has its benefits, but it also has its detriments. The upside is that you now have a beautiful new family home in which you can craft your family memories which you can cherish for the rest of your time on this earth. The detriments, however, include the considerations you must apply and install in your new space before you are 100% happy with it.

The largest of these considerations?

Security

Here’s how to optimize it:

Locks

The main design of the Yale lock that we have come to know and love was originally designed in the 19th century. That’s right, it’s that old. When you couple this with the fact that lockpicking sets are widely available through firms such as Amazon, and cheaply, you might quite rightly realize that this locking strategy is not particularly optimal in 2017. To best overcome this issue, you should implement locking strategies such as in-door bar locks that cannot be accessed from the outside, on at the bottom and top of the doors that you wish to open.

This can help you secure the property the property well when inside. Using a dual locking system, as in two keys to overcome, can be beneficial when securing from the outside. A thief picking the lock will need to apply two keys to overcome both of these, and this can be very difficult (and noisy to do,) so it should completely dissuade them from doing so in the first instance.

Garage

Garages are best secured by the door. Many people worry about having the correct locks on the doors to their main building, but completely forgo implementing a structurally sturdy and stable door frame to prevent someone from roughly breaking it open and gaining access to the property, cars and tools store within. Installing a secure, sturdy and reliable garage door can make all the difference here, and it pays to have one made specifically for the exact requirements of your size and space. Remote control doors are fantastic also, as they provide the only means of getting in as an encrypted Bluetooth or wireless signal, which is impossible to override by someone looking to gain access to your property

Alarms & CCTV

If both entrances blockades fail, and the thief somehow miraculously gains access to your property, having a strong CCTV and alarm system should be enough to impede their entry, or at least catch them in the act if they ignore these warning signs. The alarm should be enough to alert your neighbors to the disturbance, and this is where having a great neighborhood watch community setup is of paramount importance. They can alert the local authority who prioritize break-ins, giving you the peace of mind necessary to take extended leaves of absences, such as vacations, away from your property.

These tips, properly implemented, should give anyone the best tools to prevent and deter the wrong sort of people gaining access to your property.