What you can do for yourself:
- Consider joining Facebook, if only for the Village Green Neighbors group.
- You cannot totally stop crime, but you can try to displace it by making your house look less desirable to the bad guys.
- Always lock your car doors!
- Get to know at least two of your nearby neighbors.
- Let select neighbors know when you are out of town and provide a way to make contact.
- Consider parking your vehicle in the driveway of a neighbor’s house who may be out of town to make their house look occupied.
- Always lock your car doors!
- Do not post travel photos on social media while you are away.
- Make arrangements to have your grass cut while you are away.
- Keep lights on inside your house while you are away. Consider low drain LED lighting.
- Leave your porch light on all night long. Consider low drain LED lighting.
- Keep bushes trimmed around your house so there are no hiding places.
- Make sure your house numbers are EASY to find and read, especially at night. See #11.
- Always lock your car doors!
- Get a monitored alarm system (intrusion/fire/carbon monoxide) for your house and ALWAYS turn it on when you leave.
- Get a camera that you can access remotely and do NOT turn off the alarm/alert feature.
- If you have firearms, get a real safe and not just a lock box.
- Real safes protect against theft as well as heat…and water (from the fire department).
- Keep records of serial numbers for important items in the house and store them in the safe along with other important papers.
- Lock boxes are great for medications but not much more because given enough time, the bad guys will either gain access or outright take them.
- If you have a lock box, anchor it to something large, like a bed frame, to buy time.
- If you don’t like firearms but want still an effective deterrent, consider bear spray or even a can of wasp spray at home and even in your vehicle.
- Remove mail from your mailbox daily.
- Always lock your car doors!
What you can do for others:
- Consider joining Facebook, if only for the Village Green Neighbors group.
- If you see something that doesn’t look quite right, take another look at it. If it still doesn’t look right:
- Take notes
- Take pictures
- Contact someone:
Glenn Woodell (Neighborhood Watch): 757-478-9463
Police non-emergency: 757-247-2500
Police emergency: 911 - Don’t Do Nothing!
- If you hear a dog barking at an odd time of the night, investigate.
- If you get up in the middle of the night, look outside to make sure everything is ok.
- Although anyone can park or drive on a public road, if you see something that looks suspicious, see #2 above.
- Be a nosey neighbor. Look out for one another.
- Just posting to Facebook the next day that something happened hours ago doesn’t help catch
anyone.
What you cannot do:
- You cannot stop people on public streets to question them.
- You cannot detain people unless you witness a felony.
- You cannot block a vehicle from leaving.
- You cannot brandish a firearm unless you are protecting yourself or others from immediate
harm.