When you think about home security, what comes to mind? For many homeowners, home security typically focuses on traditional measures, like making sure exterior entry points are secure, and a home security system is in place to trigger an alarm in response to an emergency, like a forced entry.

However, the reality is that truly effective home security requires a more comprehensive, layered approach. Post Alarm recommends implementing a multi-layered safety and security strategy to enhance your home’s fortification and deter potential intruders.

What is Layered Home Security?

Layered home security is an approach to protecting your home that begins at the street. It extends beyond the physical structure of your home to encompass your surrounding property. While traditional measures, like door and window sensors and glass break detectors, shore up your warning system, additional security layers provide early detection and deterrence.

Simply put, earlier detection = smarter protection.

This approach involves identifying and addressing vulnerabilities around your home with measures that enhance visibility, provide early warning, and enable proactive intervention.

Layered Home Security Begins at the Street

Your first layer of defense begins at the street. A well-maintained and well-lit exterior not only enhances curb appeal but also deters unwanted visitors. Some simple measures to extend your home’s security to the street include:

• Eliminate Hiding Spots: Trim any overgrown trees or bushes to eliminate interior visibility issues or potential hiding spots, especially around doors and windows.
• Motion-Sensor Lighting: Install motion-activated or dusk-to-dawn lights to cover driveways, pathways, and entryways.
• Visible House Numbers: Ensure your house numbers are large, in contrasting colors, or illuminated for easy visibility, especially for emergency responders.

Layered Home Security: Perimeter Protection

Securing your property’s perimeter creates a critical barrier for intruders. This layer not only deters, but homeowners gain a significant advantage — time. Additional time gives you the chance to react and respond effectively to any security breaches, allowing for proactive intervention and time to get your family to safety.

Examples of effective perimeter protection include:

• Fences and Gates: Fences establish a clear barrier, while driveway gates with keypad access control require authorized entry.
• Video Surveillance and CCTV: Installing cameras with advanced analytics allows you to monitor your property in real-time and receive instant notifications of unusual activity.
• Live Video Monitoring: Adds another layer of vigilance with security experts ready to review footage, verify threats, and dispatch Patrol Officers and law enforcement.
• Perimeter Alarms: Systems with sirens and lights can alert you to intrusions while signaling to intruders they have been detected.
• Floodlights with Two-Way Talk: Our 4MP Outdoor Floodlight Camera provides a powerful response to unwanted visitors. Combining lights, a siren, high-quality video recording, and two-way audio for intervention.
• Yard Signs: Posting security signs prominently on your property can often act as a deterrent to intruders.

By implementing a comprehensive approach to perimeter security, homeowners can take another step toward effective security through a layered approach.

Layered Home Security: Exterior Entry Points

As most homeowners know, securing entry points is vital to a comprehensive layered home security strategy. These areas are the most vulnerable spots for your home where an intruder can gain entry. Fortifying your exterior entry points can greatly enhance your defense against potential threats.

• Reinforce Exterior Doors using deadbolts to prevent forced entry and consider door reinforcement bars for added strength.
• Install a Smart Lock, which allows you to assign unique codes to family members and temporary guests.
• Establish a Routine for making sure your doors and windows are locked.
• Door and Window Sensors alert you when these entry points are opened unexpectedly.
• Video Doorbells allow you to see and communicate with visitors remotely.
• Glass Break and Motion Detectors should be installed in key areas on all floors.
• Garage Security – lock the door leading from your garage to your home, keep your garage door closed when not in use, and never leave your garage door opener visible in your car.

Layered Home Security: Interior Safety Measures

The final component of our layered security approach focuses on the interior of your home. By implementing safety and security measures within your home, you can create a final line of defense to safeguard your home and family.

• Surveillance Cameras: Monitor interior spaces for added protection
• Secure Valuables: Use a safe to store jewelry, cash, and other items. Your safe should be in a discreet area that is not accessible or noticeable to intruders.
• Identify or Create a Safe Room: In the event of an emergency, if you can’t safely escape/exit your home, identify a space where your family can gather.

Additional Home Security Measures

Small habits and thoughtful precautions can significantly improve your layered home security approach.

Simple & Effective Practices:

• Keep valuables out of sight and dispose of packaging carefully to avoid showcasing what’s inside your home.
• Limit sharing on social media. Avoid posting vacations, extended absences from your home, and interior photos of your home.
• Shred personal documents before disposing of them in the trash.
• Use a USPS-approved mailbox with a lock or mail checks directly from the Post Office.
• Always lock your car and remove valuables from your car, including keys, wallets, and weapons.
• Get involved or start a neighborhood watch program to enhance your community’s safety.

Customize Your Home Security System

Every home is unique, and every family has different needs. The right home security system should be customized to you. A review by a professional security expert can help you to identify vulnerabilities and you specific recommendations to ensure your home and family are fully protected. With a layered home security approach, you can achieve peace of mind.

Shields Up. Since 1956.

A layered security approach is only as effective as the core strength of your home protection: a monitored alarm system. With 24/7 local monitoring, remote access from your phone for real-time notifications, advanced video surveillance technology, and Patrol response working in synchrony, Post Alarm makes full-coverage, layered home security simple.

We’ve always been a local, family-owned company, and we plan on staying that way. As a privately held, third-generation family business, Post has provided Alarm and Patrol Services to communities, neighborhoods, and homeowners since 1956.

Our family founded Post Alarm on a passion for protecting people and the neighborhoods we call home. Now, we’re one of the only local, full-service security organizations in the Southern California area providing professionally installed, fully integrated, customized security solutions that result in earlier threat detection and synchronized response, getting you help faster when it matters most.

Ready to start building your custom home security package? Reach out and get a free security quote today!

Updated December 2024

It’s happened to everyone at some point. A long-awaited online order arrives at your doorstep only to be stolen before you bring it into your home. With the massive rise in online shopping over the last decade, package theft is all too common.

While it’s frustrating and violating, if package theft has happened to you, you’re certainly not alone. Over the last year alone, porch pirates stole at least 58 million packages valued at $12 billion!

And in Los Angeles, the number of reports of package theft last December increased to 436 compared to an average of 295 each month throughout the rest of the year, not counting the many likely unreported cases. And it’s a trend that’s stayed consistent the last four years.

But luckily, preventing package theft is not impossible. There are a few simple steps you can take to mitigate your risk, and action you can take if it does happen to you.

Preventing Package Theft

Porch pirates have evolved with modern trends. Often, neighborhood deliveries occur in bulk. And with many retailers offering fast shipping, you likely see deliveries on your block every day. In many cases, porch pirates simply follow delivery trucks and quickly grab packages the moment after they’re delivered.

So, what can you do to prevent package theft?

Track Your Package

Most retailers provide shipping information and moment-to-moment delivery updates. In many cases, you can even designate specific days and times to ensure you’re home to retrieve a package. Make sure you stay aware of expected delivery dates and times and consider notifications for any updates.

If you’re home and a package is delivered, don’t delay bringing it in. If you’re unable to retrieve it, consider asking a trusted neighbor to hold it for you. You might even install a drop box on your porch to protect your packages until you’re able to bring them inside.

Install a Doorbell Camera

Doorbell cameras continue to grow in popularity, with more homeowners waking up to the benefits of a small camera mounted on the porch. Even though many porch thieves are savvy enough to see when a doorbell is actually a doorbell camera, they also tend to be brazen enough to appear right in front of it. This gives you a clear view of the thief’s face, which you can share online to warn your neighbors.

Additionally, the doorbell camera sends an alert to your phone that allows you to act quickly by speaking to the thief through the two-way speaker. Because most criminals are not expecting you to use this feature, it can send them running (after dropping your package) and keep them from returning to your home again. This protects your future deliveries from getting into their greedy hands.

Adding additional security cameras to your property allows a wider view of any activity happening on your property when you’re not home. Especially if you have multiple locations a package might be left. And just like a video doorbell, you can still view live feeds directly from your smartphone.

Install Smart Locks

By replacing your old doorknobs with intelligent locking devices you can control with your smartphone, you can open your front door from wherever you are and ask your delivery driver to leave packages inside.

If you miss the doorbell camera alert and the driver is gone, you can ask a friend or neighbor to do it instead. And if your neighbor has the same home security features, consider how covering for each other can be a great partnership to keep each other’s deliveries safe.

What to Do if a Package is Stolen

Despite all the steps you can take in preventing package theft, you still might fall victim to porch pirates. If it happens to you, there are a few steps you might take to remedy the situation:

• Report the theft to police.While local law enforcement might not be able to do much in the moment, you should at least notify them in case there’s a crime pattern in your neighborhood or other communities in the area. And if you happened to record the crime from a doorbell camera, you could submit it as evidence. Plus, you can use a police report to file an insurance claim if necessary.
• Report it to the delivery company.Most companies like Amazon, FedEx, UPS, or USPS have a lost package claim system in place. Don’t delete any order number or email updates related to your package in case you need them later.
• Contact the sender.Many companies have generous refund or resend policies relating to package theft.

Additionally, the LAPD Pacific Division recently recommended a few additional tips to fend off package theft, including:

• Sending items to safer, alternative locations if possible, such as your workplace, a locker/pickup location, or a friend or family member’s residence who works from home.
• Communicate with neighbors on delivery schedules and team up to bring packages inside.
• If you live in an apartment building or housing complex with a mailroom, avoid ordering packages directly. Key fobs and access codes can be easily obtained or cloned, putting everyone at risk.

Shields Up. Since 1956.

Preventing package theft is no easy task. But with the right security measures in place, you can ward off porch pirates with ease.

And with 24/7 local alarm monitoring, remote access from your phone for real-time notifications, advanced video surveillance technology, and Patrol response working in synchrony, Post Alarm makes home security simple.

We’ve always been a local, family-owned company, and we plan on staying that way. As a privately held, third generation family business, Post has provided Alarm and Patrol Services to communities, neighborhoods, and homeowners since 1956.

Our family founded Post Alarm on a passion for protecting people and the neighborhoods we call home. Now, we’re one of the only local, full-service security organizations in the Southern California area providing professionally installed, fully integrated, customized security solutions that result in earlier threat detection and synchronized response, getting you help faster when it matters most.

Ready to start building your custom home security package? Reach out and get a free security quote today!

The Home Button

When you return home in the evening, you want the house to be warm and welcoming. By tapping the Home button, you can tell your system to turn on the interior lights and unlock the front door. Now, entering the house after work is a comforting experience.