How do you keep your home safe while you’re on the road? What kind of things can you do to help keep your home secure while you’re on the road? We spoke with a few experts and share the ways we do so while we’re StressLess Camping. 

Meet your neighbors

One of the best security systems isn’t a security system at all - it’s the people who live around you. We all have that neighbor that’s not our favorite but there’s also a neighbor everywhere who is helpful and trustworthy. 

It’s funny how many people have never met the folks whom we share a community with but it’s an easy problem to solve, even if you’re shy.

Perhaps, if you’re new to an area, have a get-together or barbecue at your house as a welcome to the neighborhood function. That way you can invite the people who live around you and get to know them. You obviously have something in common already - you chose the same neighborhood. 

It probably won’t take long to realize whom you can trust and get along with and who might not be invited back. 

Having a trusted neighbor keep an eye on your house while you’re gone is invaluable. We all get those people who drop-off flyers and other junk and having someone take those and save them for you, or recycle them, helps the home not look like nobody’s there. 

If they live close enough they can also keep an eye on the house if there are any people walking around who shouldn’t be. 

This reminds me of the character of Gladys Kravitz portrayed by Alice Pearce from the 1960s TV show Bewitched who was always keeping an eye on things. But I assume there’s no magic going on in your home. 

But a trusted neighbor can pick up packages or flyers and make sure the home looks lived in. 

We also don’t tell anyone, except our trusted home watcher, that we’re not home until we get back. This includes posting on our personal social media pages. 

Make your home look lived-in

In this week’s podcast episode about home safety when you’re on the road our guest, Michael, emphasized that you should do as much as possible to make your home look lived in while you’re away. 

Start inexpensively

To this end there are plenty of smart home accessories you can take advantage of that will do this. But let’s start with the least expensive solution - automatic light timers.  

The obvious thing with these is to turn lights on and off inside your home to make it look more lived-in. But you can also combine these with a radio such that the radio comes on and off at specific times of day giving the house the sound of a voice. 

You could find a local talk radio station and have the radio play this - that way it’s more voices in the house than music. 

The disadvantage of these is that, should the power go out in your neighborhood, the mechanical timers no longer will come on and off at the times you want them to. 

Nerdy home automation

Many of us now have other home automation systems or smart home devices. These are even smarter, as the name implies, when they work. 

There are a variety of these systems that can operate through services like Apple’s Siri or Amazon’s Alexa that can turn lights on/off at specific times of day or in conjunction with other sequences. 

For example, you can have a specific lamp come on at sunset and go off at a specified time of day. Depending on how long you’re gone, the time of sunset can change. Also, these smart home systems often recognize time change.  

Using smart speakers these systems can also play specific programming at designated times of day. For example, you could have these smart systems playing the StressLess Camping podcast throughout the day which means that, in some way, we would be helping your home stay safe. Your home could become an RV enthusiast while you’re out RVing!

These systems will require Internet connectivity but many cell providers now have affordable Internet plans for the home which may be sufficient while you’re away for the rest of what we’re sharing. 

Smart cameras

There are a lot of cameras nowadays but something I don’t like about many of them is that they require that the home’s power remain on. This is fine until a power outage happens which can inspire those more mischievous among us to do bad things. 

So we have a series of cameras around our house that are charged by solar and have internal batteries and memory cards. The brand that has worked well for us for years is Zumimall. We had these at the resort and in all the homes we’ve had since. 

They require zero wiring and use the Internet to let you know if they detect motion. You can also have a two-way conversation with someone. We’ve found these cameras to have good image quality and overall build quality. 

Getting them with the solar panels means they seem to stay charged all the time and I don’t have to run power to them nor worry about power outages. 

You could also put these inside the house to monitor pets and such for shorter trips away, such as Costco runs. 

Another thing we like about them is that they alert us when they detect motion so we can see if someone has delivered a package or any other motion is detected. We also get to see a lot of birds land on the cameras - you take the good with the bad. 

Light up your life

We also have a variety of lighting timers and systems at our home. In a few places we have outside lights that have their own timers on them such that they come on at dusk and go off at sunrise. There are a variety of dusk to dawn timers from ones that screw into a light socket to control a single bulb to ones that plug in and can control a power outlet and there are even light bulbs with integrated dusk to dawn sensors built into them. 

I’m also a big fan of solar-powered motion sensor lights. These things have really gotten good over time such that we have these all over the outside of our home, typically near the motion-sensing cameras. Once again, no wiring required and they really work well. 

Mail service

Another thing to be sure of is to stop your mail. The Post Office has done a very good job of providing easy tools to accomplish this. 

The USPS has their “informed delivery” service which provides a daily digest of what you have to look forward to in your own mailbox. As Michael said on the podcast he uses this to check what’s supposed to be in his mailbox but you can also use it to pause your mail service. 

If you’re gone for even longer stretches of time perhaps consider a post office box. That way the mail can just go there and you can pick it up when it’s convenient for you. 

For really long adventures we’ve found mail services such as America’s Mailbox or the mail service provided by Escapees can be beneficial. Your mail goes there and they notify you of what’s come in. You can have the scan an email things that are important and shred things that aren’t. We have a story about our own experience with America’s Mailbox here. 

Other tips

We like to turn off our water system when we’re not home so that, should a pipe leak or, even worse, the water heater fail it won’t cause significant damage. It’s just good practice to know how to turn off water to your home in the event this does happen. 

As in our RV, we also have these water sensors in critical places in our house as well. If there is a leak these things are very loud and will alert you to go look and see what’s causing the alarm. 

Helpful tip - we also shut the water off to our RV when we’re not in it. So, if we go away for the day or even on an adventure, we turn the water off so a leak won’t cause major damage. 

Of course if your gardening requires maintenance (we live in the desert for a reason) there are all sorts of automated watering systems available that will keep the things green that are supposed to be green. 

If you do need to maintain plants and such that need water, perhaps have a plumber set your house up such that you can shut-off the inside of the house when you’re gone but leave these irrigation systems functional. 

Final thoughts

Of course nothing is foolproof because, as soon as it becomes so, a bigger fool comes along. 

Naturally there are plenty of subscription-based services as well including home security systems where there is active monitoring of your home. There are some that are professionally installed and also ones that are self-installed. 

Making your home less attractive to those who would do you harm is not a difficult task. As Micheal said on the podcast, most thieves are more likely to strike in the day time simply because they make the assumption that nobody’s home. If you make your castle look like someone is there and then have monitoring systems that can alert you if they detect something this is another way to experience greater peace of mind. Which translates into StressLess Camping.