How To Avoid A Home Break-In When You're Attending A Family Member's Funeral
While you're dealing with your grief and are focused on making arrangements with funeral homes after the death of a loved one, you, unfortunately, have one more thing to consider — the risk of a home break-in. In what society may consider one of the worst types of property crimes, criminals occasionally target the homes of family members when they're attending a funeral service. You don't want to skip the funeral service in order to stay at home and protect it, so you'll need to take a series of preventative steps that can reduce the risk of this unpleasant surprise upon arriving home. Here are some things that you can do.
Make The House Look Inhabited
Given that criminals can read online obituaries, figure out the times of funerals, and then look up family members' addresses online, it's possible that someone with bad intentions could be watching your home. You need to do your best to make the residence look inhabited during your absence. If you carpool to the funeral service with other family members, you can leave your family vehicle in the driveway. If this isn't possible, you may wish to ask neighbors to park their vehicles in your driveway.
Prevent People From Looking Inside
Regardless of whether there are vehicles in the driveway, a bold criminal may attempt to see if anyone is indeed inside the residence. You can prevent him or her from doing so by keeping all of your blinds and curtains drawn. Without knowing what's on the other side of the window, many criminals will avoid breaking into a home. Make sure that you close your upper-floor blinds or curtains, too, and make sure that you don't have a ladder or other similar device stored in your yard that someone could use to peek through an upper-level window.
Tell Neighbors About Your Absence
If you're close with some of your neighbors, it's possible that they'll attend the funeral service to support you and your family. For those who won't be attending, however, it's helpful if you can arrange for them to watch your residence during the time that it will be empty. Give a couple trusted neighbors the date and time of the funeral service and ask them to closely monitor the house; you can repay them later by sending a card of thanks or even volunteering to help them with something related to their house when the need arises.
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