hi my name is Clint Emerson retired Navy SEAL and now crisis management professional today I'm gonna provide you with some valuable tips on how to survive a home invasion there are an estimated 3,000 home invasions per day in America alone so please listen and follow my tips they could save your life before we discuss home invasion first I'm going to talk about how to prevent it altogether and then if it does happen I'll give you some tips on how to survive it a good security perimeter starts with the four DS deter detect deny and defend
D number one is deter you want bad guys when they look at your home look at your property to go never mind I don't want anything to do at that place and the way you do that is light it up illumination is a great tool to keep bad guys away and if they do approach and let's say they're standing along a wall at your home they're gonna feel naked because the light shining on them your neighbors will be able to see what's going on around your home at any given moment and call 911 for you
which is the ultimate goal is to get third parties to help you because if you're inside you're not going to know that they're lurking outside so light up your property one thing for sure bad guys do not like unpredictable events you need to add some unpredictable things to your lifestyle that could be something as simple as kids toys on the front porch or in the front yard or it could be the fact that you have dogs but if you don't have dogs well then you could put up maybe some beware of dog stickers or signs
to allude that you have dogs if you don't have kids and maybe Lane a skateboard up against the wall near your front door but one thing for certain bad guys want nothing to do with a home that they can't figure out the pattern of life for and so if you've got kids and you've got dogs great if you don't then pretend you do it'll keep them away another way to deter them is to have the illusion of robust security and that can be as simple as alarm stickers on your windows or even a security sign
in your front yard detecting the bad guys has become relatively easy these days because technology has become inexpensive and readily available the security systems can do everything from not just detecting the bad guy but identifying them and hopefully getting them detained a lot of times the cameras that come with these security systems actually are pretty high quality they're inexpensive but keep in mind a technician who installs them isn't necessarily a security guy so you've got to be cautious of where you place these things for example if you have a camera at your front door but
you know the Sun rises or sets right on that front door well that's going to affect the camera and the quality of the imagery that it can grab so make sure you put your cameras in places that can get id quality another mistake is a lot of times cameras are installed so that when you look at it on your phone or an iPad or your laptop you see this cool image of your entire living room or maybe the whole backyard but that's not gonna get you id quality of the bad guy you've got to put
those cameras in a place that get the proper field of view so you get id quality of the bad guy the easiest way to detect bad guys and it's something that's kind of gone away is simply by talking to your neighbors it takes a village especially when it comes to security so take time to get to know your neighbors let them know when you're coming and going after you build a good relationship and Trust then you can look out for one another and if you see something odd it's as easy as a text to let
them know that hey I think I see something weird in your backyard or hey there's something going on down the street but by communicating with one another in your neighborhood is really the first way and the best way to detect any anomalies or bad guys that might be cruising through alright let's talk about deny now that is just keep them out and do whatever it takes to do so and we always think about doors and windows but let's start with the garage believe it or not most bad guys go to the big garage door as
their first point of entry and the reason being is they know they can get into the garage and into the home through the garage pedestrian door because most of the time it's left unlocked so lock that inside door just to be safe a lot of times you have a garage door with a garage door opener on it which uses a remote and draws the garage door up and then draws it back down when you leave if you ever take a look at a garage door opener there's a cable hanging down with a handle on it
and that's so you can disengage the garage door opener and then freely open and close the garage manually now when the garage is closed that cable is hanging dangerously close to the skin of the inside of the garage in the wall what bad guys will do is they'll take a hanger they'll straighten it out put a little hook at the end and they'll feed it in between the top of the garage door and the garage door frame and by doing so it allows them to grab that garage door emergency release and pull on it and
disengage the garage door opener that allows a bad guy now to open the door from the outside and then he can go in the garage and close it behind him and be inside your house doing whatever he wants without anybody ever knowing so the way to prevent this is either take that garage door release handle and cut it off or you can move it all the way up to the top and zip-tie it into a bundle whatever you do you just want to make sure that it can't be hooked and that's really what you're trying
to do there so now as we move around to the let's say the front door one you want like a solid core door or an aluminum door and then we also think about locks but what's more important than locks is actually all the hardware holding everything in place usually when a doors installed it uses really short screws on the hinges the strike plate and also anything that holds the lock in place inside the door what you want to do is go around and replace all the screws with three and a half inch wood screws and
really anchor down the hinge points all those hinges is usually three of them replace all the screws then move to the other side of the door and replace the strike plate and all the screws holding the lock in place with three and a half inch wood screws what that does is it reinforces the integrity of all those things that are keeping people out in the last thing you want to do is add three and a half inch wood screws on the locking side into the door frame itself about every foot up the door and down
the door from the strike plate so now when the bad guy kicks your door in its gonna probably take him depending on his strength five to ten times just because you reinforced it which puts time on your side next windows these days they make all kinds of different films that can go on your windows that are actually used for hurricanes but what's great about them is you can throw a brick at these films once they're on a window and it won't break the window there are some films out there that actually stop bullets so it's
pretty low cost and it goes on like 10th nobody will know it's there but it will prevent your windows from being penetrated if you are the victim of a home invasion now it's time to defend yourself which is dnumber for a good defense starts with a plan and your plans do not need to be complicated in fact keep them simple it really boils down to three things having meeting places both inside the house and outside the house these are like rally points where everyone in the family is going to consolidate so that you can get
a good head count and sure everybody is safe the second piece is routes that's pretty self-explanatory that's how you get to the meeting points have primary and secondary routes sometimes that includes going out a window so keep that in mind third communication make sure everyone can communicate with one another someone upstairs may hear something and they can send a text to everybody else in the house or it's something more like setting off the alarm and everybody knows alright something's bad happening let's get out of here defense also includes defending yourself and in the unlikely event
you're in this position you do have to do some more pre-planning I like to call it a tactical nightstand we all know that we are most vulnerable when we are asleep so having everything readily available next to you is a good idea that's everything from a flashlight a weapon of some sort a way to maybe even set off your car alarms so make sure your car keys are nearby and of course make sure you got a cell phone that's charged all the time ready to call 911 the weapons you could have in your tactical nightstand
is everything from a pistol to bear spray to Hornet spray I mean you name it anything that causes or inflicts pain against that bad guy at a distance if they get really close and you find yourself in a fight well then yeah you could have a SAP you could have a roll of quarters in your hand there's Tasers and even a baseball bat it's up to you but make sure whatever weapons you choose you're comfortable with and that you know how to use them because the last thing you want is them being taken from you
and used against you if you find yourself in a position where you're grabbing a weapon and actually fighting for your life remember that's exactly what it is you have to fight for your life meaning your violence has to be equal to or greater than your adversaries so you give it everything you've got make sure you keep your wits about you the goal is to inflict pain incapacitate knock them out whatever it takes so that you can get distance between you and the bad guy remember increased distance increases survivability there are two kinds of predators there's
the ones that want your stuff and then there's the ones that want you the ones that want your stuff come during the day the ones that want you come at night no matter the time of day or the kind of predator decides to try and break into your home take time to implement just some of these tips and you'll be much better off just in case that home invasion happens to you
