What if your home is not all that dark?

[Rickstir]

I see these threads about it being dark, and you know the layout of your home and an invader does not. But what if your house is not dark. We have a ranch style in-ground home. There is a light in the hall bath and one in our master bedroom. We sleep at one end of the house. Drive way and garage are at the other end of the house.

We have an outside dog (Australian Sheppard) and four big inside dogs. The ruckus they make will straighten out anyone wanting to come on our property or come in the door. At least one of the big inside dogs sleeps in the master bedroom with us. We kind of rotate. In the meantime, I plan to be ready.

So does your home have to pitch dark to be tactical?

 

[P95Carry]

Hmmm .... not very dark here!!

The central area has a computer screen often still on ... and a light rope above. Porch still has dangly lights ..... and kichen wall light too is often on....... far from pitch black.

It's an old house tho and there are many areas that make noises ... creaks etc ... quite a few things that ''signal'' a presence. Not foolproof but .. not a breeze either.

 

[grnzbra]

You might want to go throught you house some night and do a shadow inventory. Even though you can see due to ambient light, there might still be shadows that could hide an intruder or which you could use for a tactical advantage.

 

[Josey]

I live in an area that has infrequent power outages. The power goes out and stays out for hours at a time. The rural electrics around here have experienced power outages for weeks at a time. Ice, storms, trees, snakes and animals cause outages. Alarms are not dependable either. If the power is out, the phones are often out also. Battery back up for alarms die in a little while too. When it is dark and there is no power, it is pitch black everywhere in my area. When the power is on, you can see around pretty well. I use night lights myself.

 

[Smoke]

Interestingly enough I was up at 2:15am last night due to a noise. (outside the house) If you noticed there was a full moon. I could see very easily to navigate my entire house. My Living room has 4 sets of double windows on the front wall and the entire back wall is 80% glass.

Even in our bedroom that only has two windows (and the blinds closed on the wifes side) I could still see everything clearly.

Taking a light to investigate a noise is still a good idea. You can light up the threat (or potential threat). You may not need it to determine if someone is actually there or not.

Smoke

 

[strambo]

It's not just light in general but light placement as well (which you control) If the lights on highlight you at your likely position(s), but create shadows at a perps likely position(s) = bad. Make it the opposite, like the gentleman with the computer screen in the main area, if the screen is pointed away from his sleeping area and towards where the intruder would likely be then it will help the GG and hinder the BG.

 

[igor]

This time of the year it sure is dark. I got motion detector lights on the outside and 60 kilos of black russian terrier in the hallway. You can't see the dog either...

OTOH, in summer you can read a book from 0330 until 0130