Bad Neighborhood: What Are Your Safety And Security Options?

By AlfredCamera

January 25, 2022

What is a bad neighborhood? To most people, it would probably come down to a mixture of a high crime rate, poor sanitation, and rough accommodation. On the other hand, you could also describe a bland, gentrified area devoid of culture and diversity as a ‘bad neighborhood’, so perhaps it depends who you ask.

If you put the question to a realtor, they’d probably struggle to answer, since their primary motive is, of course, to sell properties—even in areas perceived as ‘bad’.

According to the Community Watch Paper, ‘bad neighborhoods’ are characterized by similar situations or scenarios: lots of abandoned houses, high rates of crime and unemployment, noise pollution, irregular garbage disposal, and so on.

Many of us from all walks of life have or will be stuck in an unsafe environment at one time or another. When that’s the case, what can you do to stay as safe as possible?

Table of Contents

How To Tell If An Area Is Safe

If a neighborhood is clean and still offers all the amenities you want, how do you tell if an area is safe? There are several tools available online to help predict if an area is safe, but all these rely on crime data exploration and statistics to perform.

Using the crime statistics of an area alone cannot help you detect bad neighborhoods, just as relying on realtors’ statements cannot provide an unbiased picture of the area.

A great way to gauge a more reasonable picture of the state of an area is to use a crime mapping service instead of relying on crime statistics. These services are available online for most states.

Simply put in the address of the neighborhood, and you will see crimes displayed on a map of the area, along with the type of crime and date it was committed.

You can also check the number of home sales in the neighborhood to see if the neighborhood is safe. An excess of abandoned properties in a neighborhood may suggest that people are moving out as a result of unemployment, which isn’t necessarily indicative of safety, but does suggest a lack of opportunity for work and the prevalence of poverty.

You may want to dig deeper with your investigation by talking to the neighborhood residents. The residents will tell you their safety concerns and make recommendations on how they deal with such crimes.

When checking out a new apartment, it is always wise to chat with neighbors to find out their opinions on the upkeep of the building. In this other post, we talk about ways to improve your apartment security.

The National Sex Offender Public Website allows for address searches to see the details of sex crimes committed there. The lower the sex offenses per 100 homes, the safer the neighborhood will likely be.

What Are The Signs Of A Bad Neighborhood?

According to homeowners familiar with living in perceived ‘bad neighborhoods’, there are a number of recurring signs.

Poorly maintained homes
Limited access to employment opportunities
Poorly maintained infrastructures, like drainage
Drug abuse
Decay of public places, including libraries and restrooms
Little or no community engagement
Poor or zero transport connectivity to other neighborhoods
Ongoing regular crime reports
Abandoned storefronts

How To Protect Your Home: Five Tips To Improve Security

Living in a bad neighborhood can quickly become taxing and demoralizing as the sense of uncertainty and lack of safety start to impede on daily life. Of course, moving out would solve the issue, but as one article points out, life really isn’t that simple.

But not all hope is lost! Improving your security isn’t nearly as costly an endeavor as it once was, and there are a number of simple (and not-so-simple) fixes you can implement to increase your safety.

A security alarm attached to the outside wall of a home.

1. Install a Home Security System

Installing a home security system, including alarms and surveillance cameras, is the most crucial step in protecting your home. No criminal wants to get caught up after an alarm is triggered, and in one study, CCTV was implied to be the most likely deterrent.

Interestingly, burglars also suggested that the sound of a barking dog was also a significant deterrent. They aren’t man’s best friend for nothing!

A home security system usually comes with coded door locks, wide-angle cameras, and remote-control security components. If you’re on a tight budget, you can easily build one with AlfredCamera. Check out our guide on how to turn an old phone into a security camera to learn more about this.

AlfredCamera is now available to download for iOS and Android devices.

2. Install Outdoor Cameras with Remote Viewing Access

With a remote outdoor camera, you can get notified on mobile devices whenever someone gets close to your home. Some of these cameras can be remotely controlled to view different places within your home simultaneously, and you can use them to trigger warnings to an intruder.

If an outdoor camera isn’t attainable, you could also consider placing a fake security camera outside. Since the presence of CCTV alone is often enough to discourage a burglary, there is some validity to the idea that having a fake camera is certainly better than none at all—find out more in our article on dummy cameras.

3. Secure All Entry Points and Valuables

Amazingly, about 34% of burglaries are committed by simply walking through the front door. Securing all entry points to your home, then, should be a primary concern, especially when living in a bad neighborhood.

If you want to make your home less appealing to invaders, make sure all doors and windows are locked at all times. Fix broken garages and mend broken fences. Valuable jewelry must be kept safe, while door locks must be replaced with more challenging options that resist bumps and other tampering techniques.

4. Get to Know Your Neighbors

It pays to know your neighbors from the moment you move into a new neighborhood. Getting to know your neighbors will help you detect suspicious activities that you must report to the neighborhood watch or the police.

Having people you know and trust is an invaluable asset in an unsafe environment. Neighbors can agree to take in parcels left on the doorstep, for instance; a failsafe way to avoid attracting porch pirates.

5. Be Street Smart

Securing your home should not be your only focus in a bad neighborhood. Street smarts aren’t exactly something that can be bought, but they can certainly be developed. They’re especially important when walking around at night.

Familiarizing yourself with routes you’ll regularly be taking mitigates the need to wander off into dangerous areas, and you should always move around in groups whenever possible.

Conclusion

Unfortunately, a typical ‘bad neighborhood’ is markedly more affordable to rent or buy a home in than a substantially safer one. By independently researching a neighborhood, you’ll likely be more clued up about the reality of living in the place than you might be based on statements obtained from realtors.