Home or business invasions should first focus on everyone getting out of the house. Whether or not the invader is in the house when this is discovered or not the first order of business needs to be to insure the safety of everyone in the home or business. For both homes and businesses it is best to establish a rendezvous point for this specific situation. Make sure every family member or employee knows where he or she should meet everyone else in the case of a break in. For families with small children it should be something as simple as a neighbor’s house for businesses it can be wherever you feel there is a large enough space to accommodate everyone that will need to meet. Businesses should also have a phone call protocol established of those who should be able to call those who do not need to be present initially in order to avoid overwhelming the situation and location with too many people asking questions and wanting answers all at once.

For fires and weather related disasters home and businesses need to have an emergency plan in place (this should be different in hurricane regions according to the long range predictions and uncertainty of not only the routes of hurricanes but the amount of damage that can lie in their wake). If emergencies such as fires or tornadoes occur during regular office hours every employee should know where to go for protection and/or escape. The same holds true for homes. Families with small children should practice disaster drills at various times during the night and day in order to make sure children know innately what to do in case of emergency and do not panic and forget when and if the crucial time should ever prevent itself. Knowledge saves lives in situations such as this and having a clearly defined and understood avenue for escape can be critical in a situation such as this.

More than giving workers and family members a clearly defined route to take when disaster strikes having a designated and specific plan for emergencies also gives them a sense of purpose that will often override the traditional sense of panic. This is a good plan for families and work places across the country to practice.

It was mentioned above that hurricane plans are slightly different and this is true. Hurricanes present a fairly unique dilemma as we have discovered in recent years because they can literally devastate entire regions with the totality of their destruction. In these instances, information is needed to get out quickly to employees and family members that not only allows them to know who is safe but also the status of work, coworkers, and home and hearth. Establish an email list in order to contact those that may be displaced and to allow all who have an interest to know what the situation at home, work, etc. may be. If a home or business is fortunate enough to be in place once these ‘once in a lifetime’ storms pass then family members and employees will take great comfort of getting back into the normalcy of a workweek as quickly as possible. Use the opportunity to let them know the situation and give them the option of returning (if they are ready and prepared) or taking the time off necessary in order to get their homes and lives in order. All in all having a plan is the best way to go.

Seriously, poor lighting can make a home or business a much more attractive target than the house next door which has adequate exterior lighting. Home intruders may on occasion not be the sharpest tools in the shed but those who are successful in this line of work are only successful because they do understand the laws of opportunity. A dark shady area that is concealed from the view of others presents a far more attractive target to would be intruders than a well-lit and revealing access point into a home.

When designing the security plan for your home and business you really need to try and think like a criminal. If you were going to break into your home or business where would you try to gain entry? Those are the areas that need to be well lit and offer little in the way of concealment opportunities for those that would attempt to make an uninvited entrance. Do not build storage sheds near windows and doors. Instead, keep them away from these areas. Storage units provide concealment and shadow in areas where this should not be desired.

Not all security is simply from invasion. You should also be concerned about the health and welfare of those who live and work in your home or business. Having the area surrounding your home and business will not only reveal intruders but also obstacles, holes, and etc. that could pose risks of injury in addition to potential intruders. You should also keep in mind that not all intruders have only possessions in mind when they make their grand entrance. Making your home or business uninviting as a ‘pit stop’ for these criminal elements also makes it safer for your family, friends, coworkers, and employees.

You do not need to light up your home or business like a military installation in order to achieve the very security you seek. Motion sensor lights that only light up the area in which motion is detected can prove basic enough protection in many cases without inviting the neighbors to complain about the never-ending daylight you manage to create.

Rope lights provide low level and decorative lights but they also invite passersby to take a look at your property. This in itself makes your property unattractive to intruders if there is any kind of regular traffic in your neighborhood or an active number of neighbors that walk dogs, star gaze, or engage in any other nocturnal activities.

If rope lights aren’t appealing, many homes make judicious use of solar powered decorative lights, as part of their landscaping in addition to a hopeful deterrent to would be intruders. Combining two or more of the forms of exterior lighting discussed above could net even greater results. Prevention is always the best course of action when it comes to things such as home or business security as well as the protection of those who live and work in your home or business from potential harm due to inadequate exterior lighting.

These are all things that should be considered when creating a security plan for your home or business. Lighting is important for many reasons. Despite the fact that many people have top of the line security equipment and can’t find their way across their lawns after lights are out far too few people bother to take the need for adequate exterior lighting seriously. Hopefully those who read this will have a new attitude when it comes to lighting up the night skies and keeping your home and business safe.

The term “nanny cam” has become synonymous with hidden cameras. These cameras provide very little real preventative security for homes and businesses but can provide a very credible tool for identifying perpetrators of harm within the home when used properly. These cameras are appropriately named however for their function as a method of keeping an eye on those who are keeping their eyes on your children.

For home use, the ability to watch over nannies and caretakers is one of the best reasons to make this sort of investment. One thing you should remember when selecting your camera is that in some states it isn’t legal to record speech without the knowledge of the person in question. You should consult with the laws in your state before making the purchase (the retailer where you purchase your nanny cam should be able to inform you of this legality).

These cameras do have a security purpose that is often overlooked by the rather secretive nature of them and that purpose would be to keep a watchful eye on your children even when you cannot be in the room with them. This allows mom or dad to prepare dinner, pay a few bills, or even take a much-needed coffee break without feeling as though she or he should be in the room with baby. Children can be monitored from a distance allowing them to build important problem solving and self-entertaining skills while allowing you the peace of mind that comes with knowing what is going on.

Another thing to remember when installing a nanny cam in your home is that not only will it record the nanny and your children but it can also be used in order to record the housekeeper and keep an eye out for potential theft that is taking place. It is sad that we live in a world in which we should be suspicious of everyone and yet that is exactly the world in which we live. A nanny cam can make your family feel much safer and better protected just because there is always someone watching over them. In the horrible event that something goes wrong there will at least be a witness.

Small businesses also greatly benefit from the use of ‘nanny cams’ in order to identify potential thieves in their employ. Most small business owners are well aware that the vast majority of thefts are actually inside jobs. By placing a hidden camera in the stock room and above the cash register much of the theft within the store or business can be easily identified and quickly handled. Small businesses can use nanny cam not only as security against employee theft but also as a tool against the theft of merchandise by patrons.

Once again the laws of the state should be followed. If you live in a state that requires the knowledge of employees in order to obtain voice recordings then select monitoring equipment that is video only. At this point in time video surveillance is allowable without informing those being recorded in all 50 states. If you are attempting to implement tighter security efforts in your home or your business, you may want to consider the benefit of adding a nanny cam to your security arsenal. You never know just how much peace of mind merely having the camera will provide.

Unfortunately, identity theft doesn’t begin to cover the nightmares that can be accomplished by allowing slips of paper to fall into the wrong hands. There is a reason that Enron has become almost synonymous with paper shredding. They were at the very least well aware of the risks that documentation posed to their efforts of covering up the crimes they had committed against their company, their employees, and the faith many Americans have in their employers. Those documents were the equivalent of a ’smoking gun’ and the best solution they had available to them was a paper shredder.

While this is by no means meant to condone paper shredding to cover up crimes and misdeeds it does go to show the power that paper truly has, particularly in the ‘Information Age’ in which we live. Paper remains one of the most effective and convenient ways of exchanging information with large numbers of the population. Books continue to be printed on paper, as do magazines, and quarterly reports.

Despite the fact that many of us live and die by our computers, we still enjoy the ability to take this information away from the computer and enjoy it over coffee and toast for breakfast or while swinging in a hammock out back. The thing to remember is that even though we can print off delicate and often confidential material from our computers and take them along with us, it is imperative that this information is not merely tossed in the garbage but destroyed in the process. The price we must pay for having sensitive and personal information floating around on paper documents is the necessity to shred those papers and remove the information that could be used and abused by others for more sinister purposes.

If you go through a lot of paper during the course of a business day that needs to be shredded and removed it may be in your best interest to enlist the services of a paper shredding company. If you have enough employees to take care of the matter in house, you may want to invest in some serious document shredding machinery.

There are more reasons for this than the obvious security risks however and they should be addressed as well. Unlike information on a computer, paper takes up an incredible amount of space in large volumes. This means that unless a business has amazing storage capacity some of the paper information is going to have to be removed after a certain period of time in order to make room for the new paper that is being generated in volumes on an almost daily basis. Those documents that need to be kept in perpetuity can often be scanned to a computer then destroyed in order to make room for more papers (you should check with your lawyers however before doing this in order to discover what types of papers the original document is absolutely necessary to have access to in case of litigation).

Information fraud and identity theft are problems that are not limited to businesses and the corporate world. The average household needs to have a paper shredder that is big enough to handle the average volume of mail coming into the home each and every week. Anything that has personal information that doesn’t need to be kept on hand should be immediately shredded in order to avoid those who would do ill with this information from getting their hands on it.