Home Safety Tips for Living in an Apartment

If you live in an apartment there are home safety tips you need to know about.

Living in an apartment is different than living on a house. But no matter where you live you still want to be safe. Here are valuable home safety tips for living in an apartment.

1. The first in our list of home safety tips is concerning mailboxes.

Many apartments have mailboxes located on a specific area of the building. To identify your box write only your name or your initials. Do not write other information such as your room number because this leaves you vulnerable to home invasions.

2. Before moving in, be sure that you have personally had all the locks changed in that apartment after the last tenant. You may want to make copies of your keys to give to your parents, best friend, boyfriend, or girlfriend.

But before you do that check first with your landlord or landlady because many apartment owners specifically forbid their tenants from giving away keys to people that do not live there. This is not only for your own security but also for the security of other tenants.

3. A peephole is a great way to help you determine who is at the door without opening the door first. If your apartment does not have this, ask your landlord or landlady to have one installed for you.

4. When riding the elevator to your floor avoid being alone with a stranger, wait for other tenants. There may be times when you get stuck with a stranger especially if you’re located on the upper most floors, you must stay near the elevator’s controls so that you will be able to exit in emergency.

5. Another tip that deserves notice in this list of home safety tips is personal safety and being alert to your surroundings. As you approach your apartment building, do not look preoccupied such as talking to your cell phone or fumbling for your keys. It is best that before entering, you already have the keys ready in your hands. A person who looks focused and aware of his or her surroundings is more likely to be passed up by criminals.

6. If your apartment is at ground floor level you must report overgrown plants and shrubs, bad lighting, and other security matters that are the responsibility of the landlord/landlady to address.

7. To easily make insurance claims on your valuable items such as expensive jewelry it is advisable that you take make a detailed inventory of your valuables by taking pictures of them and jotting down their cost, description, and serial number also do keep their receipts. Create copies of your inventory and keep a copy in a fire-proof box that can be locked with a key alternatively you can also go to your bank and keep the document in a safety deposit box.

8. Women living alone should take extra precautions because they are considered easy targets by criminals thus if you’re this type of woman or if you know someone who is, tell them not to advertise to anyone that she is living alone.

9. If you have voicemail, begin your greeting with “We” to make it hard for the caller to determine how many persons there are in your apartment.

10. If you live alone in an apartment and have some come over to do repairs for example, leave a pair of men’s boots in the middle of the floor. When they arrive politely grab up the boots and say something like “Oh sorry, let me get those, my husband must have left them there.” Even if you will not be there it is not a bad idea to have a man’s article of clothing lyling about. It shows the person that you are not always there by yourself.

11.  If your apartment allows pets, a helpful, inexpensive tool you can get is an alarm that sounds like a barking dog.   Barking dog alarms sit behind your door and sense motion and will give of a very realistic parking dog sound when it senses motion near a window or door. This is a great way to ward off criminals that want to enter your apartment when you are not there. 

11. The last tip in our list of home safety tips is about letting strangers in. Some persons may pose as police, plumber, repairman, or building inspectors, if such a person is at your door ask for identification. If you have a schedule for a plumber or a repairman to come and do something for you, try to have a male friend come over to accompany you.