Do you have security lights on your house?
If you do, when they go on do you happen to get up from what you’re doing to go and check what triggered the light?
I do.
I’ve got a security light at the side of the house in the driveway so if anyone or anything enters the driveway at the start of the house it will trigger the light. The sensor reaches to the end of the driveway too so if anything comes through the backyard to the driveway it clicks on.
The other security light is right at the back door. It’s sensor covers the end portion of the driveway, maybe the first third of the garden, and of course the area in front of the back door.
My husband installed these in our first couple of weeks in the house because he’s always been nervous about thieves. We did move into a fairly safe area though so I’m not quite as worried about that as he is.
I like the lights because if I happen to go into the yard at night I have light! I can see if there’s an animal lurking in the outskirts of the lights, and of course if I happen to be out there doing my late night watering the lights make me feel a little more secure.
When I’m inside the house, if I notice that one of the lights have gone on I’ll usually get up and take a look. Most of the time it’s a cat that’s wandered down the driveway or gotten into the backyard and triggered the light. Other times it’s raccoons.
I’ve yet to discover a human in my yard, but there was a guy who drank too much last year who got into our neighbors yard. I think he camped out in the yard for a while. Then he tried to break in to their shed and broke a bit of the fence as he did it or perhaps the fence broken when he tried to climb into our yard. I’m not sure. Anyway he did get into their shed and he stole their boys small bike.
Our neighbors now have a security light. Except they don’t have it set to automatically come on? Strange.
So, back to my question … do you look outside to see what’s out there when your security lights come on? If you do – what have you discovered?
Shirley - Choosing Voluntary Simplicity says
We don’t have security lights, but I have to answer your question on looking outside to see what is there. One night we heard crashing sounds and looked out to see a massive black bear about two feet from our bedroom window. He had crashed through our 4-foot picket fence on his way in and crashed through another part of the fence on his way out. This was an absolutely HUGE bear… not exactly what you want to see when you look out the window!
Amanda says
we do and I love attempting not to trigger them when I go out in the middle of the night for a cigarette.
Rayne says
We have motion lights but we live in a close-packed suburban neighborhood complete with postage stamp yards. We disabled the one in front of our door because we weren’t able to leave the light on permanently for when someone was coming home after dark.
We do have the ones in front of the garage but I don’t think we can even see that from the inside of the house. We can see our neigbors’ garage motion lights go on and if it’s not kids or people coming him triggering them, it’s usually bats.
donetta says
We don’t have them but man I’m glad I didn’t move up to northern Montana!
We have switched lights at all doors.
With two large dogs they switch “us on” if anything is out there:)