Moving into your own two-story home is a dream come true for most people, but that dream also poses its own unique set of challenges and problems.
As much as we’d all like to believe that suburbia is safe from the prying eyes and unwanted attention of some of the less desirable elements of society, it just isn’t true. And that unfortunate truth means that you’ll need to protect your family and property from any possible burglars and home invaders who might view your home as a potential target, and that presents its own unique dilemma.
Where do you position and install security cameras on a two-story house to both deter, and catch a would-be intruder in the act?
Bigger Is Better
That old wives tale about size and how it isn’t important? It’s a fallacy, size does matter, and with a two-story house, the height of your home offers a natural vantage point for a camera, as the higher up it’s mounted, the more of your property it can cover and capture on film.
Strategically placed cameras can offer an almost three hundred and sixty-degree view of your home from the front and rear of your property, and if they can be seen from ground level, they can also act as a deterrent that can sometimes change a criminal’s mind at the last instant.
Ideally, the cameras should be located in both corners of the second story at the front and rear of your home, which will offer an uninterrupted view of your entire property. And contrary to popular opinion, they can be easily installed by placing them just above the corners of the windows of the rooms on either side of your home.
The height of your home is your best friend when it comes to installing security cameras, so make sure that you use it to your advantage. The higher the cameras are, the more of your property they’ll be to film, which means that nothing and no one should be able to approach your home without triggering your security system.
Don’t Forget The First Story
Almost every home invasion and robbery occurs because a criminal gains entry to a home through a first-story window or through the front and rear doors.
And as most potential burglars usually “case a joint” (carefully explore any and all possible points of entry) for the easiest access point, law enforcement agencies and security companies usually advise homeowners to ensure that any cameras that they’re going to install are also able to monitor the first floor of their home.
And as most burglars will always try to gain access to your home through a door before attempting to jimmy or force open a window, the ideal place to situate any security cameras is above the front and rear doors of your home.
Modern security cameras are almost always equipped with motion detection, so they’ll begin recording as soon as anyone approaches either door and catch the miscreant (or miscreants as the case may be) as they attempt to gain entry to your home.
Nine times out of ten though, the presence of a visible security system is more than enough to make any burglar walk away from your home, regardless of how tempting it might seem to them.
Don’t Forget The Stairs
Let’s suppose for a moment that somehow a burglar manages to evade the cameras outside your house, and makes it inside, without detection. Once they’re in, if you know where to position and install cameras, there’s absolutely no way that they’ll be able to avoid being recorded sneaking around your home.
That is, of course, assuming that you don’t have a burglar alarm that will alert either the police or you to the presence of an uninvited visitor in your home, providing of course that it hasn’t already made them turn tail and run as soon as it’s gone off.
But as there’s a chance that you might not have chosen not to fit a burglar alarm, you can always rely on cameras instead.
That said, as all of the bedrooms in a two-story house are usually located upstairs, and they’re always one of the main targets for any burglary, the best place to situate a camera is on the wall at the top of the stairs, pointing directly down at them.
Anyone venturing upstairs will then trigger the camera, which will record them prowling through your home while you’re either asleep or away.
Again, the higher you can position the camera on the wall at the top of the stairs, the better its field of vision will be and the clearer the images of the intruders will be.
But even though a camera at the top of the stairs should be sufficient, especially if it’s used in conjunction with external cameras, if you want to make sure that any possible burglars are caught on film in every room of the second story of your home, you’ll also need to install a camera that can cover all the bedrooms.
Bedroom Security
The good news is, you don’t need a security camera in every bedroom of your home. That would be weird and an invasion of your family’s privacy. With that in mind, all you really need is a single camera positioned on the far end of the corridor that leads to all of the bedrooms in your house.
Anyone walking up and down, or going into or coming out of any of the bedrooms will set the motion detector in the camera off, and will automatically be recorded. It might annoy your family, but it’s better to be safe than sorry in an increasingly dangerous world.
The No Go Locations For A Security Camera
Now that we’ve covered all of the places where you should ideally install security cameras, we thought it might be prudent to mention where you shouldn’t set them up. Bathrooms are a no-go area for security cameras.
Again, it’s an unwarranted, and gross, invasion of your families, and any visitor’s privacy, and besides, do you really want to film a burglar taking a leak when you’ve already caught them on your other cameras? No, we didn’t think you’d want to do that either.
