Pepper Spray Saves The Day

Hello again…I wanted to tell you a little story about something that happened today.

I was eating lunch at the house enjoy this beautiful spring day. It was a good 55 degrees and sunny outside. Mind you I live in Maine so 55 degrees is pretty much a heat wave after the winter we just endured.

While I’m enjoying my sandwich my phone rings. I’m take a look at the caller ID and it’s my girlfriend’s mother. She never really calls me a whole lot so this was a little on the unexpected side. So I answer the phone and she is hysterically crying and thanking me over and over. She didn’t say what for but she kept thanking me.

Keep in mind her and I do not talk too much, so this was more confusing than anything.

So when she finally calmed down I was able to ask her what this was all about. She proceeded to tell me that Samantha’s (my girlfriend) 18 year old sister was almost kidnapped that morning. Obviously I didn’t see that coming and needless to say, it was a little shocking.

At this point I was pretty disturbed by hearing this but I had no idea why she was calling me about it.

She finally asked me if I knew why she was “almost kidnapped” and not actually kidnapped. I had no idea and they only thing that came to mind was the she is a pretty tuff girl. Well, that was the incorrect answer.

Come to find out, her sister had a bottle of keychain pepper spray that I had given her last Christmas. Her attacker had tried to pull her into the car and she managed to get him in the face with the pepper spray. This bought her enough time to escape and alert campus security.

I was completely blown off my feet after she told me all of this. First off I live in Maine and stuff that like that almost NEVER happens. Secondly my girlfriend’s mother was thanking me for something…Both of which very rarely happen.

This really struck home with me. I promote self defense products for a living but I don’t usually get to hear first hand stories of how they help. Not only did I have the reassurance that what I do actually helps people but it also potentially saved the life of someone I know very well.

This goes to show that even if you live in area that may seem sheltered, there is always the risk of something happening. Like I mentioned I live in Maine and our crime rate in the state is pretty low and where I live there is almost no random person on person crimes.

Samantha’s sister is not a self defense expert at all and that is the story with most people out there. This is something I really want to get through to everyone. Most people think self defense involves long classes and physical work but that couldn’t be further from the truth.

All it takes is something as small and unimportant like a little bottle of pepper spray to save a life.
I’m sure anyone out there that has a daughter, a sister, or even a niece knows how important it is to keep them safe…especially if you live in an area that isn’t as out of the way as Maine is.

I’m sure any parent would gladly trade ten dolors’ to save a child’s life.

Until next time,

Barry

Home Security With An Onion Video!

Here’s the video I promised in my post from yesterday. You’ll have to forgive me for the quality of the video I’m still trying to master this online video thing…haha. Darn technology. You can see a better copy here if you prefer.

Home Security With An Onion

There are a lot of different ways to protect your home and keep you and your family safe. Obviously it would be pretty difficult to protect your home with an onion but bare with me I’ll make some sense of this for you.

When it comes to making sure you have a safe home it is not enough to have a few extra locks on the door or an attack dog named fluffy. When most people try to protect their home they tend to think they will be just fine by installing an alarm system. In some cases that would be enough but in most it is not sufficient.

What if a brazen thief decides to do a “smash and grab”? They can be in and out of your house pretty quickly. In that short amount of time your house can be trashed and your valuables taken. Worst yet if you live in an area that has more crime the police are probably a little busy. That only increases the time it would take them to respond to an alarm at your home.

This is exactly why you want to design your home security as cleverly as possible. The goal is to make your home both unappealing for anyone that may target you or down right frustrating for anyone that would attempt to break in.

The best way to manage this is by using a technique that is very popular among the home security experts out there. This is called the “Onion Technique”. The idea is build each part of your home security off another part to form layers of defense. It is very straight forward and obvious but you would be amazed by the amount of people that would never think to do it.

Most of the time anyone can do this with little to no money involved.

A great example of this would be planting sharp rose bushes in front of your windows. Then, on the windows use a window stop to firmly hold them in place. Then, on the inside of the window you can have a motion detector or a window alarm.

If someone tires to enter your home threw the window they may change they’re mind when they realized they have to climb threw a very sharp plant. If they still want to try and get in, it is going to be difficult for them to get threw the rose bush. If that sneaky criminal gets threw the rose bush they will be stunned to find they cannot open the window because of the window stop. For the average thief they would probably give up on that entrance or even your home. If this criminal is a savvy he might be able to get by the window stop. If that happens that’s why you have have the window alarm to give them a nice loud surprise when they get inside.

The whole goal of doing this is to make it hard for someone to break into your home because they run into one problem after another. A lot of burglars want to break in quickly and unnoticed. If someone is outside your house climbing threw a bush and then messing around with a window the chances are someone will probably notice. By creating difficult layers it will increase the time someone spends trying to get in and will greatly increase their chances of being notices by someone.

I’ll go ahead and give you another example of this method:

A very common place for a burglar to break in is thew the back door. This is normally done because there is usually tree cover and people on the main road cannot see the back door. With this cover a burglar can simply break the window on the back door and let themselves in.

Most people have a regular dead bolt on the back door which can simply be opened once the window is break. To avoid this, use a double-key deadbolt. These require a key to open from the inside as well as the outside. This makes it impossible to unlock the door once the window is broken. If the burglar is able to pick the lock you want them to run into the next layer. In this case you would use either a floor lock or a door alarm to stop them in their tracks. From there you can use a motion detector to add another layer to the system.

Chances are most criminals will just give up if they have several unsuccessful attempts to break in.

As you can see it is much more effective to take the time to have different layers to your home security rather than just having one and hoping it works. The examples I have here are simples ones and there are many many more out there that you can use. If you use your imagination the sky is the limit for making your home as safe as possible.

Keep your eyes open for my next post. I’m finishing up a video right now with a whole bunch more examples of layering and goes more in depth on the onion technique. Also feel free to check out my home security and self defense site. There is more info on protecting your home as well as yourself.

Until Next Time,

Barry