House Security – Don’t Get Caught By Your Own Negligence & Naivety!

A house should be a place of security where you can relax, unwind and have a secure and peaceful slumber. The last thing you want to think about is a breach of your household security, however in the world we live in these days it’s wise to be extra cautious. 

Here’s my story...

I’m a single woman living in shared house with two other people, my friends Shaz and Dave. Between the three of us we are practically passing ships in the night, due to our different working hours. Shaz works on the wards at the city hospital so her shifts tend to be all over the place, and Dave is a doorman which is pretty handy when you’re on a night out. I myself have a typical nine to five office job in the city within a digital marketing firm. 

Together we live in an old town house in South West London near Chelsea. We have one of those typical terraced town houses, you know the ones that are all white on the outside, have large sash windows, tall ceilings, and French Doors with white cremone door bolts at the back. 

We also have a tiny back garden that separates the adjacent gardens with an alley way, which we mainly use to put the bins out. As the area is really high profile there is hardly any news about public disturbances or break-ins, so until recently Shaz, Dave and I have seen no real reason to reinforce the security of the property. 

The Security Scare…

One evening in the summer, I had a friend round that needed a pep talk over a couple of glasses of wine. Given that Dave was out manning the doors and Shaz was on a night shift, I thought it would be the perfect occasion as we had the place to ourselves. Three bottles of wine later we decided to call it a night, and in my slightly drunken state I tided everything away and locked the back door or so I had thought. With a wine head the next morning I was still able to drag myself out of bed and head into work. 

On my lunch break later that day, I went out in a ravenous search for some stodgy food to sort my hangover out. As I was tucking into a hot brie and bacon melted Panini, I pulled my phone out of my pocketand noticed that I had several missed calls from Shaz. Given that I thought she would be hibernating all day from her nightshift it came across a little odd. When I called her back she explained that she woke up startled in the late morning because she thought she could hear someone in the house. She went downstairs to see if it was Dave and to her surprise one of the back doors was wide open. Slightly shaken she looked around the house with my tennis racket in hand to see if anyone was still in the house. 

After a thorough search in each of the rooms Shaz realised no one was in the house, and luckily nothing had been taken. As it was quite a blustery morning we assumedit must have been the wind that had blown the door open. Either way it certainly gave us all a reality check particularly me as I was the one who was negligent. I spent the rest of the day feeling awful about it all. What if someone really had managed to enter the building, and what if they had hurt Shaz in the process? I would have never forgiven myself! 

That evening when both Shaz and Dave where home, we had a house meeting to discuss the issue that occurred that morning. As a precaution just in case anyone did enter the house we decided to change all the locks, and have since fitted the back doors with new brass French door bolts. Between us we each double and even triple check all the doors and windows before we leave the house now. That way we all have peace of mind that there will be no given opportunity to attempt a break in.