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Home Security and Monitoring from VTech

We recently checked out the new VTech VC931 HD wireless pan & tilt camera—and recommend it for the high-definition video quality, night vision, and pan and tilt camera control.…

Home Security Cameras That You Can View From Anywhere

Smart home security systems are awesome but they usually cost a ton of money for the equipment as well as the labor to install them. VueZone has created a system that you can monitor from your smart phone and…

10 Things NOT To Do To Keep Your Home Safe

Now that it’s officially autumn and fall projects are finishing up as the cooler weather sits in, it’s time for a reality check. Before you know it, winter and the holiday season will be upon us once again, and…

Windows May Be Your Home’s Weak Spot

When it comes to home security, you can easily invest a lot of money in a high-budget alarm and monitoring system. Yet there are also several budget-friendly things you can do to boost your home’s protection. One of your…

Secure Your Home With Creative Landscaping

Living in an urban environment sometimes means sacrificing some personal space. Houses are closer together, square footage is minimal, and neighbors don’t have to work very hard to be nosy with their windows practically lining up with yours. Privacy…

Enhance Your Home’s Exterior Security

When it comes to protecting your home and your family, the exterior is just as important as any interior security features you may have. The best thing about most of these suggestions is that they’re relatively budget-friendly, too, and…

Jurassic Bark: Dinosaur Robot Home Security (For Real)

We stumbled upon this little interesting little tidbit stemming from this year’s CES and thought we’d share with you: how’d you like a pet robot dinosaur as your home security? Back in 2002, Japanese robotics company TMSUK developed the…

Home Security Systems Aren’t Just For Vacation

People often think home security systems are only useful when they’re not at home — say, going on vacation or even just the day-to-day of going to work, driving the kids around, eating out and the like. But home…

Affordable Home Security Camera System from Logitech

Home security camera systems don’t have to be outside your budget. For $300 you can pick up this system from Logitech that is easy to setup and provides many of the features you’d find on a security system many…

The Simplest Way To Protect Your Home

High-tech alarm systems, motion detectors, motion-activated lights … there are any number of devices and gadgets that will help protect your home from break-ins. But when it comes to home security, you don’t necessarily have to spend a lot…

Fire Administration Issues Home Heating Safety Alert

Because cold winter months prompt increased heat usage, it’s no surprise that home fires and carbon monoxide poisoning tend to spike during the season. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and United States Fire Administration have issued a home…

iKey To Transform Home Security?

While we’re busy waiting for flying cars and self-cleaning refrigerators, the masterminds at Apple may already be transforming home security. The tech behemoth was granted more than 550 patents in 2010, and although specific products haven’t yet been announced,…

Faux Dog Home Security

We’ve previously talked about what you should consider before getting a guard dog for your home. But were you aware that there’s a camp of thought that uses the illusion of dog ownership as a home burglary deterrent? The…

Home Security Monitoring Systems

There are many home security systems to consider when laying out your plan for home protection. The advancements in these systems grow by leaps and bounds as technology changes and prices drop. Real-time monitoring systems are now all expected…

Comparing Halogen, CFL and LED Floodlights for Home Security

Automatic floodlights are one of the best investments for home security as they’re active 24/7 and cost very little to install and maintain. Home Depot offers a few options in the PAR38 standard floodlight size from Halogens, CFL’s and…

Holiday Home Security Round-Up

We’ve arrived at one of the busiest travel weeks of the year. While you’re off enjoying a healthy dose of holiday merriment, take heed of some of our favorite home security tips to give you the peace of mind…

Cash In On Electronics Discounts And Build A Home Theater

They’ve been nearly inescapable the last couple of weeks, unless you’re (lucky enough to be) living under a rock. Commercials touting the latest holiday retail deals are filling airwaves and print media with declarations of stunning bargains, one of…

DIY Holiday Home Security

DIY home security the way to go if you are traveling next week for Thanksgiving, take the time this weekend to make sure your house is in order so you aren’t scrambling last minute to secure your home. Follow…

Transform Your Home Before Thanksgiving

That wonderful day of eating and giving thanks is a mere week away! You’re probably busy planning your menu (and devising your grocery store plan of attack), but if you have any spare time, consider one (or several) of…

When Neighbors Make Your Home Unsafe

Getting to know your neighbors. can be one of the simplest ways to keep your home safe and secure. But what happens when your neighbors aren’t willing to cooperate? That photo is of my backyard, which shares a fence…

Prep Your Home’s Security Before The Holidays

Oh, the holidays — such a magical time of year! And unfortunately, the latter half of November and December generally see a rise in home burglaries as a result of more people traveling out of town and the temptation…

Where To Install Smoke Alarms In Your Home

Installing smoke alarms throughout your home — and keeping them in proper working condition — is one of the most important things you can do to protect your family and pets. The National Fire Protection Association estimates that nearly…

High-Tech DIY Home Security

Installing your own home security system no longer requires the expertise of a skilled technician. You can still invest in a full-featured system from one of the leading home security firms but you now have more choices when it…

got junk

Review of 1-800-GOT-JUNK

For two people who don't own a truck, 1-800-GOT-JUNK was a perfect solution to our very time-sensitive problem.…

Protect your Family with Safety Glass: It’s Not Just For Cars

When we moved into our century-old home and began our then-minor-now-major renovations, we realized something slightly terrifying about our original to the house solid wood door. Moreover, the picture window in the door. Somehow at inspection, we had failed…

Father’s Day Projects for Non-Dads

Everyone has a father but clearly not everyone is a dad. We’ve rounded up some projects that non-dads will enjoy that are best achieved sans kids. Weed Burning – Break out the torch! Moving Appliances – Heavy and awkward…

The CDC Creates A Zombie Pandemic Graphic Novel

Anyone who’s caught the first season of The Walking Dead on AMC knows that the CDC played a vital role in handling the zombie pandemic of which the heroes of the story are trying to survive. The show is…

When To Inspect Your Fire Extinguishers

In addition to installing smoke alarms throughout your home, you may opt to keep a couple of fire extinguishers on hand in case of an emergency. Yet fire extinguishers, like most other things in your home, need to be…

Use Landscape Lighting To Enhance Safety

While some people prefer a very in-your-face style of home security presence, there are others who lean more towards a subtle, multi-purpose approach to ensuring their home’s safety. One way to accomplish a more low-key, yet attractive level of…

Protect Your Nest With A Camera … For Nests

A little known secret in the home security world is that the appearance of security is about 90% of the actual benefit of having a home security system. Meaning, if it looks like you have a system, potential intruders…

Change Out Your Screen Door With A Stylish Security Door

Security doors used to have a pretty bad rap. They’d decrease your property value, make your neighborhood seem sketchy, and worst of all, were ugly. Screen doors, however, were praised far and wide for creating welcoming entryways, adding style…

Safety Tips Everyone In Your Family Should Know

Kwikset has taken notice of our home security blog and have asked us to join their Kwikset SmartSquad to help educate homeowners about effective and proactive steps to help maintain the safety of their home and family. We thought…

Creative Childproofing Ideas: A Magnetic Fireplace Cover

For those of us with the ultimate DIY projects running around (that’d be kids), sometimes it’s hard to figure out the best way to make your home safe while encouraging curiosity and healthy boundaries for your littles. While there…

ADT Pulse Goes Beyond Remote Security

Being able to remotely control your home’s security system is one of the perks of continually evolving technology. But if you need something more comprehensive, consider ADT Pulse, a whole-home automation system that’s customizable to your needs. ADT Pulse…

World’s First Zombie-Proof House

Unless you’ve been hiding out in a bomb shelter in fear of Cold War nuclear attacks, you’d know the biggest possibly-irrational fear in the post-modern world is the zombie apocalypse. From TV shows to survival guides to the actual…

Burglarly Facts to Learn From

The FBI has cataloged the areas of entry that burglars will target into a home. Take these statistics and protect your home accordingly. 81 percent of residential intrusions occur through the first floor. 34 percent of burglars entered through…

MACE Pepper Spray Gun Test

We ordered our MACE pepper spray gun last month and finally got around to testing it. Included in the package is the gun, one canister of pepper spray, and one canister of water loaded for testing. The gun feels…

Stash Valuables In A Doortop

File this project under “ingenious.” Have some small valuables or cash that you want to conceal? If you have a hollow core interior door, you can use a few tools to create an inconspicuous hiding spot. Guys (and ladies)–this…

A Safety Checklist For Daylight Saving Time

With Daylight Saving time approaching for most of the country this weekend, we thought we’d give you a few tips of things to check around your home while you’re switching your clocks and smoke alarm batteries. *Change the batteries…

Make A Severe Weather Plan

You may have noticed that we’ve got a case of spring fever here at C&H. In much of the country, however, warmer temperatures also bring a higher threat of severe weather. Although tornadoes tend to peak during the spring…

Create A Family Safe Word

When you have a home security system, often times you’ll be asked to create a “safe word” — the point of it being that if your alarm goes off, you have to give the safe word to the security…

Pepper Spray Gun for Personal Security

The non-lethal personal protection industry continues to grow and Mace remains at the forefront of delivering interesting and effective products. Recently Mace has taken gun form factor and turned it into a simple delivery method for pepper spray in…

Lawnmower Safety and Kids

A lawn tractor can be a handy tool to keep your yard looking great. As with any tool, you must respect its power and use caution during operation. For lawn tractors, these precautions are especially critical if children are…

Tips On Setting Your Security Code

In today’s digital world, creating passwords, identifying questions, and security codes are required in nearly every aspect of your daily life. From voicemail to ATMs to security systems, one of the most common forms of security codes are the…

Outdoor Security Lighting Has Evolved

The NightWatcher is an outdoor security lighting system that separates itself from the pack of other security lighting systems because it not only turns on when it sense motion, but it will also track an intruders motion within it’s…

Streamline Your Safety With Low-Tech Keyless Entry

If you’re looking for a keyless-entry solution for your home or office but are concerned about electrical failures locking you in or out, we have quite the gadget for you. Korean designer Jaeseok Han has masterfully married the basic…

Staying Safe During Urban Revitalization

In sociology, there’s a school of thought that defines urban areas into circular zones. There’s the center-most, financial center of a city, then outwards from the center (much like rings on a tree) the zones are defined by the…

Carbon Monoxide Monitors Can Save Your Life

The recent tragic deaths of five Florida teenagers is a stark reminder of how dangerous carbon monoxide poisoning can be and how important the need for carbon monoxide monitors is. The colorless, odorless gas can be emitted from a…

The Best Place To Store Valuables (Besides A Safe)?

Believe it or not, the kitchen is one of the safest places in which to store valuables while you’re away from home. According to a post by Lifehacker, the kitchen is often overlooked in favor of other rooms such…

Consider Pet-Immune Motion Detectors

Motion detectors are a popular choice for homeowners seeking additional security. They can be installed in a number of places, including throughout the exterior of your home to active floodlights. And thanks to improved technology, many motion detectors are…

WARNING: Ranges Have a Tipping Point

We want to shed some light on a little known danger in the kitchen. Recently a one-year old child was killed when he climbed onto the open door of a stove and the range tipped over and killed him.…

Thanksgiving Day Safety Tips

Because so many people spend Thanksgiving Day cooking large amounts of food, it may not come as a surprise that the Red Cross reports that the holiday sees more than double the number of home cooking fires than a…

Safety Tips When Throwing out Christmas Trash

A pile of trash stacked on the curbside. Seems rather innocent, doesn’t it? Yet you may want to monitor what’s in the trash before you haul it outside. Now is the time of year for gifts, and often, that…

Make Craigslist Even Simpler With CraigsEasy

Craigslist can be the virtual mecca for DIY enthusiasts. Whether you’re looking for the perfect vintage dresser, discount kitchen cabinets, or gently used children’s wares, the free online classified posting site is ripe with deals to be had and…

Time To Change Your Smoke Detector Batteries

We trust your clocks are now one hour behind (the extra sleep is glorious, the early darkness is not!) Daylight Saving Time is also the ideal time of year to swap out the batteries in your smoke detectors —…

Be Your Own Bed Bug Exterminator

Bed bugs are becoming more of a nuisance in New York City and elsewhere around the country. You can be your own bed bug exterminator if you’ve already confirmed that you have bed bugs (bites, seeing bugs or droppings).…

Build a Neighborhood Watch Program

Your neighbors are the best source of home security possible and organizing them helps everyone out. Neighborhood Watch programs are the best place to start and they’ve got some great ideas for how to build your own neighborhood watch…

KCPD Advocates Environmental Design As Crime Deterrent

Forget expensive security gadgets and high-tech alarm systems. Sometimes the best crime deterrents are the result of environmental design factors, which include a careful survey of your property and home to spot potential problem areas. In a video tutorial…

Local Crime Statistics Go High Tech

I live in a smaller city near the largest Air Force Base in the nation, the intersection of two major interstate highways, and about a million college campuses. So despite the fact that I by no means live out…

Bomb Shelters are Booming

A couple years ago, I went on an architectural tour of a mid-century home that had a nuclear fallout shelter in the backyard. I kept imagining how tense and uncertain the Cold War atmosphere must have been for people…

How To Safely Sell Items on Craigslist

Craigslist can be a DIY’ers dream. Just about everything under the sun can be found for purchase, and usually for a decent price. On the flipside, selling unused or excess items from your home and projects can be an…