Safe Houses - physical security

This is great, Chris. I'm sure that many have the same questions and concerns that I've posted. I'm getting some PM's from others interested in eventually living in the DR, so this thread will be helpful to all of us.

Planning ahead is the way to go... just a couple of ideas:

• Limit the number of points of entry.
• Use safety doors with imported locks (import them yourself! Locksmiths are often suspects). If you can, use keypad locks, so you can reprogram access if you have to part with employees or love affairs and assign limited access to some people (like cleaning personnel). The hardware can be bought in the States at quite reasonable prices and be installed easily if it has been taken into consideration before building (just like alarm systems, lights and video surveillance).
• If security is a big issue, like you have goods and values and/or a life style which you feel may attract problems, consider to design SASE-type points of entry (double doors... the second one only opens once the first closes behind the person coming in or leaving) with reach-thru openings to check "tool boxes" and "pizzas" prior offering access to people. This is very easy and not so expensive to do if it is planned ahead.
• It makes no sense to have a safety front door, when you have an unprotected glass sliding door in the back or a non secure door between your garage and the house interior (two often seen details in the US). Most break ins are from the back (lack of visibility adds to it too, read about fences too.)
• If you love big windows, entertain the possibility to have columns in between to reduce the "reach-thru" size.
• Increasing the thickness of glass increases strength by the square. In other words, glass thickness doubled increases the strength 4 times! 8mm glass is considered safe, 12mm is considered a replacement for steel protections IF the frames are solid and set into your building correctly. There can quickly come a time in which your doors and even windows are more difficult to break in than you cinder block walls (something most never think about, luckily not even most of thieves). Believe it or not, but it is fairly easy to break a hole thru a cinder block wall and the noise from the 9 Pound hammer is less suspicious to neighbors! Something to keep in mind too.
• If you consider steel protections (rejas) on your windows, have them planed in before building. Have them run directly into the wall with a thru the wall anchoring design (if you are unsure what I mean, I can show you or you may want to study colonial buildings in Santo Domingo too).
• Fence your property in prior to building. Have a see thru fence so you can see what's going on on the street and people can see if you are under attack. Design your house so that you can see people ringing your bell from the inside. If have known a rich family in an other similar country which got attacked and robed twice and the house emptied an other time in less than a year. They had a huge stone wall fence, just like an old jail house (they've changed to chain link too in new designs) and we were living next to them. We never saw nor heard anything. Later they cut down the wall to 1.5m and a 2.5m high steel fence on top and nothing happened ever again.
• Have your perimeter and house exterior wired for lights, and your electrical system for timers and/or automatic day-nite switches (there are now 60W low consumption bulbs available [as seen at PriceMart lately], which will light up like a regular 500W flood light!)
• Have an alarm system that will go off on glass breakage and movement (thieves don't tend do slide open windows, they break'em).
• A video system can also be a nice deterrent. If you use video, having cameras only pointing from the house outward is NOT a complete solution. You may want to plan ahead (wires) to be able to see from the edges of your property to-wards your home without actually having to go for a walk and ask "is somebody here?". Use only good quality equipment, it's not that much more expensive if you buy it in the States or Europe.
• Plan ahead for living quarters for your dogs, if that's something you might consider.
• If you plan for a safe, plan ahead for 2! One you can open and has some stuff you can afford to give away to buy time, an other one NOBODY but you knows about.

And there is more...

... J-D.

The only effective security is active anything else can be circumvented.

Involve yourself in the community
keep on good terms with your neighbors, make sure they can see your house and you theirs.
hire a security guard
keep someone at home all the time
get two or large dogs and two or more small ones.

Anything else can easily be broken by a determined thief. Any wall can be climbed, barred windows can be defeated with a belt and a stick, crowbar or a hacksaw blade, most locks can be broken, and a couple good kicks or a simple ram will open almost any door. I have yet to see a house i would want to live in that i couldnt break into in less than 15 minutes..

J D Sauser said:

• Limit the number of points of entry.
• Use safety doors with imported locks (import them yourself! Locksmiths are often suspects). If you can, use keypad locks, so you can reprogram access if you have to part with employees or love affairs and assign limited access to some people (like cleaning personnel). The hardware can be bought in the States at quite reasonable prices and be installed easily if it has been taken into consideration before building (just like alarm systems, lights and video surveillance).
• If security is a big issue, like you have goods and values and/or a life style which you feel may attract problems, consider to design SASE-type points of entry (double doors... the second one only opens once the first closes behind the person coming in or leaving) with reach-thru openings to check "tool boxes" and "pizzas" prior offering access to people. This is very easy and not so expensive to do if it is planned ahead.
• It makes no sense to have a safety front door, when you have an unprotected glass sliding door in the back or a non secure door between your garage and the house interior (two often seen details in the US). Most break ins are from the back (lack of visibility adds to it too, read about fences too.)
• If you love big windows, entertain the possibility to have columns in between to reduce the "reach-thru" size.
• Increasing the thickness of glass increases strength by the square. In other words, glass thickness doubled increases the strength 4 times! 8mm glass is considered safe, 12mm is considered a replacement for steel protections IF the frames are solid and set into your building correctly. There can quickly come a time in which your doors and even windows are more difficult to break in than you cinder block walls (something most never think about, luckily not even most of thieves). Believe it or not, but it is fairly easy to break a hole thru a cinder block wall and the noise from the 9 Pound hammer is less suspicious to neighbors! Something to keep in mind too.
• If you consider steel protections (rejas) on your windows, have them planed in before building. Have them run directly into the wall with a thru the wall anchoring design (if you are unsure what I mean, I can show you or you may want to study colonial buildings in Santo Domingo too).
• Fence your property in prior to building. Have a see thru fence so you can see what's going on on the street and people can see if you are under attack. Design your house so that you can see people ringing your bell from the inside. If have known a rich family in an other similar country which got attacked and robed twice and the house emptied an other time in less than a year. They had a huge stone wall fence, just like an old jail house (they've changed to chain link too in new designs) and we were living next to them. We never saw nor heard anything. Later they cut down the wall to 1.5m and a 2.5m high steel fence on top and nothing happened ever again.
• Have your perimeter and house exterior wired for lights, and your electrical system for timers and/or automatic day-nite switches (there are now 60W low consumption bulbs available [as seen at PriceMart lately], which will light up like a regular 500W flood light!)
• Have an alarm system that will go off on glass breakage and movement (thieves don't tend do slide open windows, they break'em).
• A video system can also be a nice deterrent. If you use video, having cameras only pointing from the house outward is NOT a complete solution. You may want to plan ahead (wires) to be able to see from the edges of your property to-wards your home without actually having to go for a walk and ask "is somebody here?". Use only good quality equipment, it's not that much more expensive if you buy it in the States or Europe.
• Plan ahead for living quarters for your dogs, if that's something you might consider.
• If you plan for a safe, plan ahead for 2! One you can open and has some stuff you can afford to give away to buy time, an other one NOBODY but you knows about.

And there is more...

... J-D.

Click to expand...

Thought Chris had a great idea here and your points are so justified but I don't want to live in a Fort Knox lookalike - am I stange?

Whirleybird : if you don't want to live like this so don't live here. Those are great ideas and I think they are really necessary. I live alone in an apartment. I have 2 big dogs, and my main door has 5 locks!!!! The door at the back has 2, and I'm still don't feel secure. I am fighting with my Dominican neighboors to loch the front door. I have steel bars at each windows and never leave a window open at night...even if it is really hot, as I live downstairs. And I live in a gated community near Puerto Plata....where there are lots of robberies.....
As always, some will care a lot about security and will be robbed anyway (as my friend : they robbed 6000 euros and a computer here in Costambar), others won't do anything and won't have any problem....This is life!!!
I don't like to live like this. Before coming to Puerto plata I was living with poor Dominicans in the campo, never heard of any problem. I don't know if times have changed or what, but now it is really difficult.
And I'm open to any suggestion to have a better security...Thanks to everybody.

Estrella1 said:

Whirleybird : if you don't want to live like this so don't live here. Those are great ideas and I think they are really necessary. I live alone in an apartment. I have 2 big dogs, and my main door has 5 locks!!!! The door at the back has 2, and I'm still don't feel secure. I am fighting with my Dominican neighboors to loch the front door. I have steel bars at each windows and never leave a window open at night...even if it is really hot, as I live downstairs. And I live in a gated community near Puerto Plata....where there are lots of robberies.....
As always, some will care a lot about security and will be robbed anyway (as my friend : they robbed 6000 euros and a computer here in Costambar), others won't do anything and won't have any problem....This is life!!!
I don't like to live like this. Before coming to Puerto plata I was living with poor Dominicans in the campo, never heard of any problem. I don't know if times have changed or what, but now it is really difficult.
And I'm open to any suggestion to have a better security...Thanks to everybody.

Click to expand...

I think you may have misunderstood what I meant.... my fault for being so inarticulate, I will PM you if I may

Culture Around You

Estrella1 said:

.... poor Dominicans in the campo, never heard of any problem....

Click to expand...

Again it depends.

There are 'bad barrios' with little crime... the inhabitants 'commute' to their daily places of theft and robberies...

Other barrios are notoriously known for their daylight thefts of clothes, gas cylinders, shoes, anything loose...

Immerse in the culture... yeah.

m'frog

and who would ever have 6000 euros in their house?? I wouldn't even have 6000 pesos....

Estrella1 said:

Whirleybird : if you don't want to live like this so don't live here. Those are great ideas and I think they are really necessary. I live alone in an apartment. I have 2 big dogs, and my main door has 5 locks!!!! The door at the back has 2, and I'm still don't feel secure. I am fighting with my Dominican neighboors to loch the front door. I have steel bars at each windows and never leave a window open at night...even if it is really hot, as I live downstairs. And I live in a gated community near Puerto Plata....where there are lots of robberies.....
As always, some will care a lot about security and will be robbed anyway (as my friend : they robbed 6000 euros and a computer here in Costambar), others won't do anything and won't have any problem....This is life!!!
I don't like to live like this. Before coming to Puerto plata I was living with poor Dominicans in the campo, never heard of any problem. I don't know if times have changed or what, but now it is really difficult.
And I'm open to any suggestion to have a better security...Thanks to everybody.

Click to expand...

Costambar pretty much says it all. As I've said before, why do people live there? Never heard a good thing about it except for the $RD600 golf course.
I think I'd move.....my humble opinion.

tflea said:

Costambar pretty much says it all. As I've said before, why do people live there? Never heard a good thing about it except for the $RD600 golf course.
I think I'd move.....my humble opinion.

Click to expand...

Not only golf course.
Something more important- WOMEN AND PERSONAL FREEDOM.
You won`t realize how sweet and important it is until you taste it. And when you tasted - you are hooked and addicted and you will never come back to places like NY even under death penalty.

You will realize that nothing is better and more important in life than to live without constant and permanent fear of fines and tickets for everything, of all kinds of legal prosecution, of sensless traffic jams when a cop just closed two lanes for no reason, and more, and more.
When you are in DR you won`t believe yourself - you are ALLOWED TO LIVE.

It happened to many of us after our first-second tourist visits to DR. When we were those stupid and naive gringos.

I agree, like I said we never keep much money here. If someone needs paying we need to go to the bank and often ask them to accompany us if necessary. "If you can't please a fool, don't tease a fool"

Thieves don't know what you have inside until they get in to check it out. Money (cash) alone is not the sole attraction... it's anything, like TV's, stereo systems, cameras, computers, vehicles... heck, even your shoes may fit. If you have a nice house, they will suspect there are things inside, it's logical.

The key is to place yourself where there is not a big history of robberies, break-ins and street crimes (location). And then design your home so it is safe or at least not easy to break in. After all it's not pocket change or your TV you are worried about once you are trying to focus the muzzle of a piece held too close up your face, but your life. Short you do not want that situation. There is no such thing like total security but since most here are no super rich an famous some basic precautions may limit your risk to a very, very small percentage
I have seen homes in other countries with similar problems which never got one single incident while most of the homes surrounding it had had some kind of issues and they did not have to look like Alcatraz nor imprison it's inhabitants, but the house was planned ahead well and some precautionary measures were taken.
To clarify my point further:

• If you consider having steel protection (like most have in Hispanic and Latin countries) it won't change a thing on your lifestyle and your home sweet home feeling to have them planned ahead and anchored correctly.
• If you have a security door in the front (like most), it won't hurt to have a safe locking system, nobody will even notice except a perp.
• If you have lights around your property and you planned ahead for them, so there won't be a mess of wires visible, you will soon discover how much ambient they can add to your late pool parties, while offering security when there is suspicious movement.
• If you plan on having a steel protection door in front of your outside doors (very common here), why have it 3" away from the door and not 4 or 5 foot away from it and thus create a little patio entry (which looks nice and Caribbean style)? And while you are it an planned for it, you can very well have an electric look on that one so you create a SASE entry: You open the steel rod door from the inside, the "guest" comes in, the door closes behind him and only then after verifying the ID close up you open your door. It's simple and when planned ahead it's not so much more expensive and it can be made to look nice and affect your new Caribbean lifestyle only positively.

Look, these are just some examples (and personal opinions of mine). It's just like planing ahead for a Tinaco. Most don't and later find out that yes, there is water, but never when you need it or that water pumps are usually not connected to the inverter (no power-no water, unless your reservoir is above your highest faucet), and then they have to resort to creating an eyesore on the top of a beautiful villa. Just drive around and watch and you'll get my point. Same with split A/C's and solar water heaters. Interestingly enough even Dominicans building fall into the same trap over and over again.


... J-D.