When the end of the day rolls around, homeowners must decide to leave their porch lights on or turn them off, then it just takes a second to make that decision.
Most people will turn to the internet to help come to a resolution, but inevitably, the places they look for answers won’t agree.
For instance, supporters of keeping lights on say it is a good deterrent for burglars!
While supporters of turning lights off say it distracts burglars from your house. So which side is right?
Read on to find out why you should not leave your porch lights on during the entire night!
Lights attract burglars
There ain’t really no evidence that lights really keep burglars from breaking into your home.
Some of the brightest neighborhoods have had the highest crime rates.
Most burglaries occur in the light of the day, when the sun is shinin’ bright.
If anything, lights may draw a criminal’s attention. How? Most people sleep with their lights off.
If you leave your porch light on, the housebreaker will think that nobody is home, so it makes it easy for them to just walk in your house.
Lights assist intruders
Think about this scene – one person trying to walk into a darkened compound, and another person walking into a lit area.
Which one are you going to see first?
You obviously will see the person going into a darkened compound, since they have to turn on a flashlight to see!
Now think of the previous analogy applied to burglars – it is way easier to see burglars when your porch light is off. The burglars need to have a torch to clearly see, if your light is off.
Now consider an intruder walking as an act of entering a house whose lights are on. Now they get a free pass – obviously, you won’t notice them until they are close, or already inside your home.
Heads up! For those of you in a rural setting, having your porch light on at bedtime may also be harmful for you. Leaving the light on allows attention to be attracted and it also allows the bad people to clearly see what they are doing by the light you left on when they got to your house.
They will have more confidence knowing you live in isolation.
Lights can annoy neighbours
You may like to feel comfortable with leaving lights on, but your neighbor may not.
As mentioned above, most people prefer to sleep with the lights off.
If your porch light lights up your neighbor’s back yard, they better like it.
If not, you might face a civil suit for the right to quiet enjoyment.
If they don’t file a lawsuit, you could make an enemy (which you don’t want) or get kicked out by the landlord.
Lights attract bugs
Ain’t nothing more maddening than cleaning up after moths and other nighttime flying insects that are drawn to light bulbs.
The difficulty all begins when a swarm of bugs is buzzing around your light, and the majority of them drop to the ground, leaving your porch dirty.
If you seriously don’t want to wake up to a messy porch, consider turning the lights off before bed.
Lights consume electricity
Cost of living is on the rise and many are looking to cut costs due to rising prices.
One avenue to cut costs is to cut your electricity usage.
Although we have energy-saving bulbs produced by modern technology, they all play a part in raising your monthly bill.
As stated above, it makes sense to shut off porch lights as they are redundant and sometimes detrimental.
The small savings can be valuable for other endeavors.
What Are The Alternatives?
Keeping your porch light on all night will not solve your home security problems – it is actually costly and can be dangerous.
These are some other options to make your home secure.
Motion sensor porch lights
Yeah, I know motion sensing isn’t new tech, but it is effective in keeping your home safer.
When the goal is to help prevent break-ins, you’ll want to position motion sensing lights at the front and back doors and on low windows.
As you’d guess, the lights are equipped with built-in motion sensors.
They trigger when the sensor detects motion in it’s range of detection. And the light will suddenly come on and that may be all you need to scare housebreakers.
The only thing to keep in mind is that motion detectors can not distinguish between a human, dog, or racoon. If it is in the range you might be scared by a racoon.
These motion detector lights don’t help if no one is home, or if no one saw the burglar.
Use smart lights to mimic human actions
One easy way to step up safety at home is to add some smart lights with timers.
These lights use artificial intelligence, to act like there are people in the house, even when there aren’t. The goal is to deceive someone outside, so they perceive there are people around.
For example, you can set up the porch light to turn on in the evening and then off just before you would normally be going to bed. The lights inside can turn on and off in various rooms to create the appearance of other people’s movement.
These timers are nice to use if you have a holiday planned.
You can use the timers for any other appliances too; like your TV, music system, etc.
If a burglar hears the sounds of a TV playing in your house, they are less likely to take the risk of breaking in.
Know your neighbors
Forming good relationships with your neighbors is the most effective and least expensive way of protecting your home.
You can buy motion sensors and smart lights, but your neighbor will call you or the police if they see unusual behavior at your home.
When you move into a new home, please introduce yourself to your neighbors. They will know who comes in and out of your property then!!
It is also helpful to tell them if you’re on vacation.
According to FBI Statistics, a lot of burglaries happen during the day.
Most people don’t leave their alarms on when they go to work.
This is where your neighbors can be helpful, especially teens, and especially if they are work at home people or retired folks.
Wrapping Up
The most common reasons to leave the porch light on overnight is safety and property protection.
But security experts have valid reasons to say that it doesn’t help to have them on until morning. It may even be counter-productive.
Be certain to turn off the porch light before sleeping! This decreases burglary risks. If need be, purchase smart lights with timers, to recreate human movement.
Most importantly, be on good terms with your neighbors – they are most likely to inform you of an intrusion, especially when you are out of town.