In a ritual that takes place at the end of every summer, millions of people will soon be locking up their beach homes and mountain retreats and heading back to their principal residences.
But just how secure are the houses they leave behind?
Not very, especially in largely seasonal towns and hamlets such as Ocean City, Md., or Aspen, Colo., where the majority of the houses and apartments are vacant for long periods, and practically no one is around.
The good news is that although remote destinations such as Fenwick Island, Del., or Eagles Mere, Pa., may seem like easy pickings for burglars, these towns rarely attract criminals because they’re too far away. So says Marc Mac Young, a former street tough who now lectures and consults on personal safety and self-defense.
“Scavengers prefer to feed at home,” says Mac Young, who went by the nickname “Animal” when he was a gang member years ago in Los Angeles.
“There’s less chance of your place being hit when it requires a lot of travel time. But if it does happen, the odds are it will be big. If a pro knows the area is abandoned, he will clean out the entire house.”
According to the Census Bureau, some 4 million houses in the U.S. are used only seasonally. And if you add that to the 15 million homes that sat unoccupied in 2003, it means that 16 percent of the nation’s housing stock is being left unattended for lengthy periods.
Other than turning their beach houses or ski chalets into fortresses, there’s little vacation homeowners can do to stop a serious burglar, says Mac Young, who now lives in Castle Rock, Colo. “If someone really wants to get in, they will get in,” he says.
But you can make your place more difficult to get into than your neighbor’s. And often that’s all you need.
“”Your goal is to make it more trouble for someone to break into your house than the guy’s next door,” says Mac Young, a former bodyguard, bouncer, cooler and security guard.
It goes without saying that you should lock all locks, secure all access through gates and windows, and install — and use — an alarm system.
There are a number of other steps you can take to burglarproof your vacation property. Mac Young suggests hiring a caretaker to occupy your place while you are away, or joining with neighbors to pay someone to watch over all your houses.
Barring that, one of the first things you should do is make your property look lived in.
Start by putting several of your interior lamps on timers. Use the kind that can be programmed to go on and off at various times, and equip lamps in two or three rooms so they are lit at different times.
To avoid disruptions to your well-planned timing mechanisms caused by power outages, opt for sunlight-activated timers. And you probably should put in new bulbs before you leave. That way, you won’t be relying on older bulbs that are more likely to blow.
Another tip: Leave the light above the range on all the time. “The kitchen is one room that tends to have lights on the most,” Mac Young points out on his Web site, www.nononsenseselfdefense.com.
You also may want to “seriously secure” all entry doors but one. If you use something like a foot lock to jam two of your three doors, he says, “you’ve cut down the chances that someone can get in by two-thirds.”
Make sure that exterior lights are on motion sensors or even timers and that they are mounted high enough so they can’t be reached without a ladder.
You might also want to consider putting your television on a timer so it goes on and off in the afternoon and again in the evening. At least leave a radio on — to a talk station as opposed to music. The broken pattern of human speech is “more consistent with someone being home” than music, Mac Young advises.
Also, turn down your telephone so a series of unanswered rings doesn’t alert someone to that fact you’re not there. Better yet, keep your answering machine on, with a message that says you can’t get to the phone rather than you are not home. And check and delete your messages occasionally so the machine doesn’t become full.
Whether to close your drapes is debatable. Some say closing them is a sign that no one’s home, but others argue that open drapes allow someone to peer inside. Mac Young suggests a compromise: Leave the first-floor drapes closed but open those on the second floor.
If some of your neighbors are year-round residents, tell them you are heading home and ask them to check on your place occasionally so they can pick up packages, door flyers, phone books and whatever else might be left at the door. And be sure someone watching the place has a way of contacting you.
Also alert the company that monitors your alarm system, the local security service and the local constabulary that your place is empty.
Of course, trouble doesn’t always come from the outside. A leaky pipe, for example, can cause far more damage than a burglar. A eighth-inch crack can spew up to 250 gallons of water a day, wrecking floors, walls and furniture, says the Institute of Business and Home Safety.
To prevent that, shut off the water at the meter, especially if the house isn’t insulated. But even if it is, it’s a good idea to stop water from entering your house when you are not there and to drain the pipes, toilets and faucets.
If you leave the main water supply on, turn off the supply at individual fixtures — toilets, sinks, the washing machine, even your refrigerator’s icemaker. Flooding often occurs when hoses are worn or there’s a leak at a connection, the home safety institute says.
Most people know to adjust their thermostats, but do you know the proper settings? For the winter, 55 degrees is warm enough to keep pipes from freezing but low enough that you are not wasting money heating an empty house. If your house is vacant in the summer, setting your air conditioner at 85 will prevent damage from humidity.
It’s also a good idea to unplug all your appliances except the refrigerator, which should be turned to its lowest setting.
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You may write to Lew Sichelman c/o Chicago Tribune, Real Estate, 435 N. Michigan Ave., 4th floor, Chicago, IL 60611. Or e-mail him at realestate@tribune.com. Sorry, he cannot make personal replies.
