Keeping Your Home Safe This Holiday Season

Happy Holidays from First Bank! In the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, keeping your home safe isn’t always the first thing on your mind. But just like we need to be vigilant about our surroundings while we are out shopping, it’s equally important to maintain a level of awareness when it comes to safety risks in and around our homes.

Home theft and house fires both increase in the month of December. Here are some tips to keep your home safe:

Live Christmas Trees

Live Christmas Trees can cause house fires. You can avoid this by following general safety guidelines.

• Keep water in the well of your tree stand at all times. This keeps the tree alive longer and prevents the needles from drying out so quickly. Dry tree needles and hot lights or cord malfunctions are a dangerous combination.
• Use LED lights to decorate your tree. They stay cooler than non-LEDs, which prevents fires and also keeps your tree from drying out so fast.
• Turn off the lights on your Christmas tree before leaving the house
• If your tree is near a heating vent, close the vent until you take the tree down, or adjust the vent to not blow on the tree whenever possible.
• Keep your tree at least 10 feet from your fireplace and any open flame candles. 

Theft

Home burglaries are higher during the holiday season because people are buying more gifts and having them delivered to the house. In recent years, theft involving packages on front porches has increased considerably.

If you are ordering from Amazon and nobody is home during the day, consider having your merchandise delivered to an Amazon locker near your home or job. Lockers don’t cost extra money, and they keep your packages safe until you can pick them up.

If you know something is being delivered from an online retailer, and you won’t be home to retrieve it, ask a neighbor to take care of it until you get home.

Keep your cardboard/paper recyclables inside until trash day. Thieves often search outside trash cans for signs of what’s inside the home, as well as personal information from monthly statements. An abundance of online shopping boxes and boxes for expensive items such as computers might be an incentive for someone to break into your home

If your Christmas tree is near a window, consider not putting gifts under the tree until Christmas Eve. Or, if possible, put the gifts on the side of the tree a person cannot see by looking through your window. Thieves are less inclined to steal when they can’t see an easy target for theft.

All of these tips require little effort but can have a huge impact on your home’s safety this holiday season. Be safe and enjoy the holidays.