What Is a Safe Neighborhood?

When people ask me what my company does I tell them, we provide protection that is beyond peace of mind.

Protection of a home or a business in my world means that we keep your family, your home, your business or job (if you aren’t a business owner) safe from fire, burglary, water damage and theft.

When I was a young boy in the 1970’s we didn’t have the internet, email, social media or streaming video. If we wanted to talk to someone we would pick up the rotary dial phone and called them or you went outside to chat.

We were all neighborly and had nothing to fear. We always felt safe and never for a minute even thought about neighborhood sex offenders, neighbors manufacturing explosives or growing pot in their basements.

My parents never worried about letting my brother and I play at the house down the street with our friends or ride our bikes until it was dark. Sure, we needed to check in periodically for lunch and dinner but that was to make sure we didn’t get hit by a car.

I hear a lot of homeowners or soon to be new homeowners tell me that they live in a safe neighborhood. Criminals, terrorists and sex offenders are living in the same streets that you and your children live and go to the same stores that you shop at. They just don’t wear a sign that says, “HI! I GROW POT IN MY BASEMENT.”

We now live in a time where we must always lock our home or car doors.  The moment we don’t, the faceless intruder will come along in the middle of the night while we are asleep and take away our things like our purse or wallet, GPS, radar detector or garage opener from our car. And that is if your lucky. This same faceless intruder also checks for homes that are unlocked while you are hard at work. When one is found, it waltzes the home like an invited guest shopping to take the things you worked so hard to earn.

This post isn’t meant to make you paranoid or scared, it is meant to make you aware that keeping a watchful and relentless eye on what matters most will make you much safer. As a former EMT, my training taught me to always survey the scene upon approach for any threat that could endanger me and my crew. While I am no longer an EMT, I still use my training to keep me, my family and my employees safe.

Times have changed and we no longer live in the 50s. We must protect our family, our home and our livelihood at all times now. The moment we don’t and let our guard down is when crime of opportunity comes knocking. The question is: will you answer?