Layered home security doesn’t have to be complicated or even that expensive in order to be effective. Effectiveness to me means avoiding a single point of failure while maintaining the ability to keep situational awareness through various passive and active methods. I want to stress that what I’m about to share with you should be considered: A way, not the ONLY way. A few other considerations:
- Much of this will be determined by your needs and where you live, apartment in the city vs farm vs subdivision vs townhome etc.
- Consider doing an assessment of your own home, what are the strengths / weaknesses, who or what are you trying to keep an eye on or out altogether? Who or what are you trying to protect?
- All of this is only as good as the desire to stay alert (to a degree) and committed to the plan, leaving your garage door open and that interior entry door unlocked on a Sunday at 2 pm could pose far more risk than one thinks. The boogeyman isn’t always coming at 2 am when everything is buttoned up.
- Every plan can be beaten, every home can be breached but that is the exception vs the rule. Typically these methods are for everyday bad guy (or bad animal) occurrences, not a team of operators kicking down one’s door.
Pardon my handwriting, Click to enlarge
Layered security is just what it sounds like and I’ve created 4 layers in the example drawing above. As people or animals pass through various layers they are greeted by more and more deterrents, the biggest of which (and first) being where I live and how my home is positioned. Should someone continue through the various layers their predicament becomes more precarious and should they choose to breach the interior of the home things get dicey really quick.
Layer 4: This one is something you can only control when you purchase your home: Location. With that in mind understand it’s sort of a sliding scale based on where you live. If you are on 100 acres in the middle of the woods or even on farm land, layer’s 2 and 3 can be very robust helping to deter folks before they get to layer 1. If you live on the 18th floor of an apartment complex in downtown Chicago, layer 1 is about all you can influence (if that). That being said layer 4 can be very critical when considering what you want to deter but there are always two sides to a coin.
I live at the end of a one way dirt road in the mountains which is great, nobody should be driving around out here without a purpose and strange vehicles are easily recognized. The other side of that coin is while people might stay away, bears and mountain lions do not. I’ve had bears at my front door every season and captured lions on trail cams, more “frightening” than a bad guy with a crow bar and much more of a threat to our dogs than we would like.
Layer 3: I consider this the “no man’s land” of my property. An area far enough out that security cams might not be effective and also where dead space has to be taken into account. We used to annotate dead space on our range cards back in the Army so I don’t want to use that assuming everyone knows what I’m referring to.
An area within the maximum range of a weapon, radar, or observer, which cannot be covered by fire or observation from a particular position because of intervening obstacles, the nature of the ground, or the characteristics of the trajectory, or the limitations of the pointing capabilities of the weapon.
While I’m not sitting up on my roof behind sandbags with a 240B, I hope you get the idea of dead space when it comes to a civilian property. I tend to do two things with this area:
1- Signs for deterrence: No Trespassing, Video Surveillance in use, Beware of Dog.
2- Trail Cameras.
I figure the signs are great because it gives folks and idea that the property owner is a serious guy and that should they want to take a stroll down the dirt driveway a large animal could be awaiting their arrival. The trail cameras get checked on a regular basis but honestly are more for capturing wildlife. Should an event occur they would be a source of record to see who / what decided to stray into layer 3.
Layer 2: Now things start to get more serious as we approach the walls of the Alamo. Motion detection which feeds to me via text message, exterior flood lights at 1500 lumens, cameras with night vision capabilities and of course more signage. In truth these pieces of equipment generally let me know when the UPS guy has arrived or an animal is around but should things get a little dicey they could be used for more awareness.
I should note that if things really got bad, all exterior and interior lights would be OFF. Darkness can be your friend if you have the right equipment and since we aren’t talking operators kicking down my door, not many people have the right equipment.
Layer 1: The Alamo. Every entry point is alarm wired, steel doors protect the exterior and if someone (or even worse, a lion or bear) did penetrate the doors / windows they have a big dog and myself to deal with. I’d probably be standing there in my underwear with my cast iron frying pan and bottle of mace ready to go, it’s the only way to deal with home invaders these days.
A Couple Points
A few things I should also mention here. I do not have a single provider for all of my security needs. Company A has my exterior cameras, Company B my interior (if needed), Company C is the alarm company. I do all of this to split out the potential points of failure and while it is more cumbersome than one provider for everything I feel better about it. Additionally all of this is great but if the power goes out things obviously change. An additional course of action should be considered for these circumstances and rehearsed for just in case.
Some Links to Equipment
Here are some links to some equipment that I have used in the past or currently use, worth the browse and yes I get compensated if you purchase through Amazon by clicking the link.
The Bottom Line
Our county is understaffed when it comes to law enforcement, as a matter of fact there are no deputies on patrol during the evening hours. Should I have to make a call to 911 it would probably be 45 mins to an hour before someone with a badge showed up to my doorstep. With that in mind it’s important for me to keep and monitor my own layered security measures. Honestly my greatest threats to date have been wildlife but there are other circumstances out there which I’m aware of which keep me on my toes. It’s all about what you think you need, where you live, how you want to employ it and avoiding that single point of failure. Stay safe out there and good luck.
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