Stay safe at home in St. Louis by staying away from these home security mistakes

Are you using your pet’s name as your wireless password? Putting a key in a mailbox or under a mat for a neighbor or relative? Sadly, residents put their properties and families at risk each day by being lax or neglectful about security. Don’t be among them. Instead, stay safe at home in St. Louis by steering clear of these typical home security mistakes.

Mistake No. 1: Keeping doors and windows unlocked

Don’t you enjoy the time of year when you can open windows and doors to invite in a refreshing, cool breeze? Just don’t neglect to shut and secure them when you exit the house! You may be surprised by the amount of people who are careless about locking these critical entryways, the most common places for invaders to come in.

Ever forget to secure the door? What if you were able to have your smart home secure your entrys for you? You can do exactly that. You’ll stay safe at home in St. Louis when you program your smart locks to automatically activate at certain times of the day or after they’ve been used. If you prefer not to schedule them, you may still operate your locks remotely with your convenient smartphone app.

Mistake No. 2: Electing to self-monitor in St. Louis

Urgent situations are prone to take place at the most inconvenient times. Envision being on vacation and playing with your kids in the water when a smoke detector goes off. Or, what if there’s a crisis when your cell phone is not accessible during a medical appointment. When it comes to safeguarding your home, you should have a backup. A trusted monitoring service won’t ever miss an alarm and responds quickly to remedy all sorts of emergencies. Monitoring yourself can be problematic since you’re never going to be available all the time. Get the help and peace of mind you are entitled to with well-trained monitoring specialists.

Mistake No. 3: Packages piling up on your St. Louis doorstep

Letting packages gather on your front porch is an invitation to prowlers. Don’t give them a reason. As an alternative, fetch your boxes the moment they arrive with the aid of your home’s security. Modern doorbell cameras will dispatch updates through your smartphone app when a package is dropped off and can even recognize the difference between people, animals, packages, and cars. This capability is helpful in preventing nonessential alerts.

Mistake No. 4: Careless home network security

Wireless home security installations have opened a new level of access and control. You can examine video streams, engage locks, and even change your thermostat from anywhere. But you need to ensure your network is secured. Lax network security is one of the most common mistakes homeowners make. You can avoid this by practicing the following:

• Implement strong passwords and always change the default password on tools like routers.
• Utilize the most up-to-date Wi-Fi security standards.
• Put home security devices on a different network, instead of adding them to the guest network that offers internet access to family and friends.
• Make certain you schedule firmware or software updates for your security devices and router.

Stay away from security mistakes that put your St. Louis home at risk

One of the best ways to steer clear of common home security mistakes in St. Louis is by installing a full-featured smart home from Vivint. Features like remote access, smart locks, and 24-hour monitoring will help shield your property night and day. Didn’t remember to secure your main entry or fail to see an urgent security alert? No problem! Your smart home and its dedicated monitoring specialists will be there to back you up. Reach out to (314) 866-4556 today to get started.