What you can do for yourself:

  1. Consider joining Facebook, if only for the Village Green Neighbors group.
  2. You cannot totally stop crime, but you can try to displace it by making your house look less desirable to the bad guys.
  3. Always lock your car doors!
  4. Get to know at least two of your nearby neighbors.
  5. Let select neighbors know when you are out of town and provide a way to make contact.
  6. Consider parking your vehicle in the driveway of a neighbor’s house who may be out of town to make their house look occupied.
  7. Always lock your car doors!
  8. Do not post travel photos on social media while you are away.
  9. Make arrangements to have your grass cut while you are away.
  10. Keep lights on inside your house while you are away. Consider low drain LED lighting.
  11. Leave your porch light on all night long. Consider low drain LED lighting.
  12. Keep bushes trimmed around your house so there are no hiding places.
  13. Make sure your house numbers are EASY to find and read, especially at night. See #11.
  14. Always lock your car doors!
  15. Get a monitored alarm system (intrusion/fire/carbon monoxide) for your house and ALWAYS turn it on when you leave.
  16. Get a camera that you can access remotely and do NOT turn off the alarm/alert feature.
  17. If you have firearms, get a real safe and not just a lock box.
  18. Real safes protect against theft as well as heat…and water (from the fire department).
  19. Keep records of serial numbers for important items in the house and store them in the safe along with other important papers.
  20. 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.
  21. If you have a lock box, anchor it to something large, like a bed frame, to buy time.
  22. 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.
  23. Remove mail from your mailbox daily.
  24. Always lock your car doors!

What you can do for others:

  1. Consider joining Facebook, if only for the Village Green Neighbors group.
  2. 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!
  3. If you hear a dog barking at an odd time of the night, investigate.
  4. If you get up in the middle of the night, look outside to make sure everything is ok.
  5. Although anyone can park or drive on a public road, if you see something that looks suspicious, see #2 above.
  6. Be a nosey neighbor. Look out for one another.
  7. Just posting to Facebook the next day that something happened hours ago doesn’t help catch
    anyone.

What you cannot do:

  1. You cannot stop people on public streets to question them.
  2. You cannot detain people unless you witness a felony.
  3. You cannot block a vehicle from leaving.
  4. You cannot brandish a firearm unless you are protecting yourself or others from immediate
    harm.