Home Safety for People Who Live Alone

The setup

In a shared home, safety is spread around: someone's usually there, someone notices if you don't come home, someone hears the odd noise. Living alone, all of that is on you, and that's mostly a matter of a few good habits and one or two well-chosen tools.

Why it's hard alone

The gaps are quiet ones. No one knows your schedule, so no one notices if something's wrong. An empty home looks empty. And at night, there's no second person to check the noise downstairs.

The solo method

1. Make sure one person knows your rhythm. A friend or neighbor who'd notice if you went quiet for a day or two. Swap a simple daily check-in text if you like.
2. Don't advertise that you live alone. One name on the mailbox (initials work), no "home alone this weekend" posts in real time.
3. Make the place look occupied. Lights on timers, a radio when you travel, mail held or collected.
4. Lock up every time, including the door to the garage and windows on the ground floor.
5. Keep your phone by the bed at night, charged.
6. Test your alarms. Smoke and carbon monoxide alarms on every floor, tested monthly. No one else will notice the chirp.
7. Leave a spare key with a person, not under a mat or in a fake rock.

What nobody tells you

More home burglaries happen in daytime than at night: 53% versus 43% in the FBI's 2024 data. Burglars want an empty house, and homes are emptiest while people are at work. What makes a home a bad target is looking occupied and being a bit harder to get into than the one next door.