Ways to protect your home for the holidays

Ways to protect your home for the holidays

By HARLOW SUMERFORD
6 News Reporter

KNOXVILLE (WATE) -- Every year, people leave town for the holidays and leave their homes vulnerable to thieves.

"Crime isn't the thing that's on their minds. It's seeing relatives and friends and having a good time," says Lt. Jerry Armstrong, with the Knoxville Police Department.

The safety tips are simple, but often forgotten.

If you leave town, remember to lock doors as well as windows. Have a neighbor pick up your mail.

Also, "Your gifts, your wrapped gifts, make sure you keep them hidden somewhere in the house. Don't put everything you have under the Christmas tree. Keep them out of sight so people can't see them from the outside because that is advertising what you have," Lt. Armstrong says.

There are plenty of high tech options to protect your home as well, but you don't necessarily need a fancy surveillance system.

For about $25, you can get a fake surveillance camera. They have motion sensors, a light comes on and the camera moves if someone walks in range.

For around $199, there are phones that will call you if someone breaks in to your home. One is called TeleSpy.

"This is a motion sensor. You point that to the door or any area you think there might be an intrusion and that is it. You leave and if there is an intrusion, the sensor goes off and dials the number you programmed into it. Say you set your cell phone. If you are out eating and you pick it up, you can listen for 60 seconds," says Gary Glarner, with Spy Teck at 3501 Chapman Highway.

Glarner says you'll know immediately if someone is in your home.

Of course the idea is to prevent thieves from even trying to get in. That means doing everything you can before you leave town for the holidays.