Make sound decisions while dealing with door-to-door solicitors. Protect yourself from bad business practices and potential criminals acting like salesmen with these safety tips:

• Learn community restrictions: Many communities have legal restrictions on when and where door-to-door salesmen can work. Learn and apply them.

• Advertise home security: Display window decals and yard signs for your home alarm system as a deterrent for potential intruders that disguise themselves as door-to-door salesmen.

• Report problems: If a solicitor won’t leave when you ask them to, call the police.

• Watch them afterward: Look to see what the person does after they leave your door. If they check to see if doors are locked or do anything else suspicious, call the police immediately.

• No outside offers: If someone approaches you soliciting outside of your home, say “No thank you,” go inside and lock the door behind you.

As summer approaches, families across the country will make travel plans. In addition to booking flights and finding deals on hotels, one thing can’t be overlooked – home security. One of the best ways to protect your home is installing and activating a home security system. Homes with monitored security systems are reportedly three times less likely to be burglarized.

Another great way to help keep your home safe is by hiring a house sitter. He or she can make sure things run smoothly while you’re gone – and most importantly – make you home look occupied. An occupied home is much less appealing to a burglar than one that looks empty. House sitters are also ideal for people with pets.

Here are a few tips to follow when you hire a house sitter:

Keep them informed. If you have dogs or cats that require medicine, a particular kind of food or something else, be sure to let your house sitter know ahead of time. And be sure to leave the house sitter with a list of emergency contact numbers in case anything goes wrong.

Give an overview of your home security system. The house sitter should know how to arm and disarm your ADT security system. Let them know how the system works and create a plan in case a break-in or other home emergency occurs.

Give clear instructions. Make sure everything that needs to be taken care of while you’re away gets clearly listed or communicated. This will make things easier and less stressful for all parties involved, and clear expectations are always great – even if someone is doing you a favor.

Don’t forget about the mail! If you are going out of town, make sure the house sitter brings in the mail and newspaper. When they start piling up, burglars will realize no one is home.

At some point, parents have to admit their children are growing up. And part of this means knowing when they are finally responsible enough to stay home alone. When it’s time to give your kids some independence, make sure you’re both prepared. Start off by taking shorts trips to the store or to a neighbor’s house. It’s one of the best way for both kids and parents to ease into the new routine. Plus, things are much easier now that most parents are accessible by cell phone.

It’s also important to go over the responsibilities of staying home alone. One of the biggest responsibilities is activating the home security system. ADT home security systems are easy to use – even for younger members of the family. Your kids can activate and de-activate the system as needed, and you’ll know they have they protection of 4 home security monitoring centers while you’re away.

It’s also important to set rules for kids when they are cooking or using the kitchen, and to implement specific rules if they have friends over. Leaving kids home alone is all about planning ahead and making sure they’re prepared in case of an emergency.

If you’re excited to get out of town this summer, you’re definitely not alone. After a stressful winter in so many different parts of the country, more people are taking time off to enjoy themselves.

But in the rush to leave for vacation, home security can get pushed to the back burner – and that can result in burglaries and a stressful end to a great vacation. Installing an ADT home alarm system and paying attention to common-sense steps before leaving, can mean the difference between your house being burglarized or you being in the clear.

The most important thing to remember when it comes to home security is that it’s not just about having an alarm. The first step towards avoiding a burglary is making your home look occupied at all times. You want your house to look occupied, because most robbers prefer breaking into homes when no one is around.

So if you’re packing up for vacation, take the necessary steps to make sure that you don’t have any trouble. Leave a few lights on and don’t allow mail or newspapers to pile up. Above all, always remember to set your home security system before you leave the house. Without it, your home is a lot more vulnerable.

As parents age, their home security and safety becomes a big concern – especially if they live on their own. Fortunately, the latest home security technology makes it easier than ever for the elderly to stay safe at home and contact the authorities in case of an emergency.

The first step in helping protect your senior parents is making sure their home has a reliable home security system in place. ADT provides more than just 24/7 burglary monitoring – they also have one-touch monitoring for medical emergencies and fire. Their security keypads and keychain remotes make it easy for people of every age to alert the local authorities if an emergency occurs.

Of course, having an ADT home alarm system is not the only step in keeping your parents safe and secure. The next time you’re at their house, do a simple walk-through and identify any potential danger areas. If climbing the stairs is a risky idea, get one of the chairs installed that makes it simpler to get upstairs. If you notice lots of spots where wires are running under the rug, increasing the odds of someone falling and getting hurt, figure out a new way to re-route them that won’t cause a problem. After all, it’s a combination of those little things with the bigger items like a reliable home security system that will help keep your parents safe and healthy–and will leave you feeling good about their independent lifestyle for years to come.

Bringing home a new dog or cat can require just as much planning as a new baby doe. From figuring out how to introduce the new pet to young children to installing pet sensitive motion detectors, there are plenty of details that need to be addressed. The first major step in home security with a new pet is identifying any problem areas around the house. This means removing wires that are easy to chew and putting them out of reach or under the carpet, along with making sure there aren’t objects that are easy to knock over and break in the path of your pet, and blocking areas of the house where you don’t want your pet to go.

The second step in home security with a new pet is definitely being diligent and mindful about doors and windows. You need to keep them shut at all hours if you are concerned that your pet is going to make a run for it, and don’t discount a curious kitten and its ability to wander out onto the roof from the second floor. Certain home alarm systems do a better job handling pets than others. ADT offers pet sensitive motion detectors to reduce the number of false alarms in your home. Talk to your home alarm company and figure out if you need to make any upgrades to your home security system.

Anyone who is adjusting to life away at college will find that things are a little bit different than they are back at home. If you were previously living with your parents, you probably didn’t spend much time thinking about home security. But life in a college town or city is considerably different, and taking a few minutes to reassess the way you think about home security can make the difference between having a seamless transition to living on your own or having a more difficult experience.

The first thing to think about when it comes to staying safe at college is your surroundings. If you are off-campus in a house, you might be able to get an ADT home alarm system to improve the odds of you avoiding a break-in. If you are living in dorms, however, you won’t be able to rely on a home security system for extra protection, so it’s better to learn more common-sense steps to keeping yourself and your property secure.

If living in dorms, then you have to take into account that in addition to sharing common spaces with a whole lot of people, you also have a roommate. And while you’re getting to know these people, it is important to keep your valuables stowed away someplace safe. Be sure to always put away valuables, and lock up the dorm room when you aren’t going to be there; you don’t want to provide easy access to your valuables.

If you have to cross a bunch of vacant parks late at night on a walk home from the campus library, don’t carry valuables like your laptop, and try to avoid deserted spaces in general. Most colleges and universities have an escort or public transportation that will get you home safely if you live off-campus, and others even offer taxi vouchers. Be aware of your options so that you can maximize your safety and home security.

A house is broken into in the United States every few minutes, and it seems as though more and more people are investing in home alarm systems to help out with the task of keeping their belongings and their family safe. But sometimes, it can be difficult to adjust to having an alarm, or to learning how to properly operate one. Fortunately, ADT makes activating your home security system easy. Here are a few tips for getting the most out of your home alarm:

1. Always make sure that windows and doors are securely closed. This is a crucial part of making sure your alarm works every time.

2. Make changes for pets. If you didn’t have pets when you first had the alarm installed but now do, it can lead to more false alarms. And when a home alarm system has a lot of false alarms, people are less likely to set it. ADT offers pet-sensitive motion sensors, making this an easy problem to solve.

3. Always turn it on. If you don’t turn on your home alarm, you aren’t going to be able to get the most out of it!

4. Make sure everyone in your house can set the alarm. This is a key step towards increased home security. If even one member of your household isn’t sure how to work the alarm, then you have a weak link. Be sure that setting the alarm is part of everyone’s routine when they leave the house.

5. Do the proper maintenance. Are there floodlights that are part of a timed system that needs replacing? Are you using a battery-powered alarm panel that should have its batteries replaced? These simple home security maintenance steps can make a huge difference in the safety of your home and loved ones.

We’re quickly turning into a more wireless world, which is becoming increasingly helpful to many Americans. The introduction of wireless options, whether it’s a Wi-Fi internet connection or the latest ADT alarm, helps people get things done more efficiently.

The new high-tech gear that comes with ADT monitored alarms does an incredible job of improving the functionality of your home security system. The latest wireless home alarms are not only easier to work with, they also streamline your security system so there are fewer chances for things to go wrong. Take the digital keypad, for example. It lets you activate your home alarm or contact medical or fire dispatchers with the touch of a button. And it’s easy enough for all members of your household to use.

If you are constantly tripping over yourself rushing into the house to disarm your home security system at the end of the day, the keychain remote can save you a lot of time and hassle. The one-touch remote fits right on your keychain and lets your arm or disarm your system from nearly anywhere in your house. It’s perfect if you don’t want to run back inside to set the alarm or if you want to activate the system once you’re already in bed.

Everyone knows the feeling of opening the door with an armful of groceries, only to have to quickly set them down to shut off the home alarm. Of course, it makes sense that you have to quickly disarm your alarm once you get home: that’s part of what makes your ADT security system such an effective form of home security. Fortunately, ADT also provides easy ways to arm and disarm your home security system with the touch of a button.

ADT wireless home security systems make arming and disarming your home alarm possible from just about anywhere in the house. With the keychain remote you can turn your alarm on and off from the driveway. This means you don’t have to worry about tripping over anything in your effort to hit the lights and get to the alarm panel fast enough, and it also means that if you forgot to set the alarm after you already locked the door, you can actually do that without having to get your keys out again and go back inside. It’s exactly the kind of development that makes things easier without making anything less secure – another example of ADT’s industry leading technology at work.