News Report: Man shot in neighbor's home charged after allegedly undressing in 12-year-old's bedroom

As a residential security expert, I wonder how the man got into the house. The news article from WDRB out of Louisville, KY explains that the man broke into the house through the daughter's bedroom window. Was the window open? Did he defeat the window lock, or was it unlocked?

Having a bedroom window open at night is very dangerous unless the window is not easily reached from the outside of your home. Keep those easily reached windows secured. You can also purchase window vibration alarms for them. That allows you to leave it cracked, but vibrations will still set off the alarm.

No matter what you do, even if it is your daughter's bedroom, never block egress from the room in the event of a fire or other emergency. The window should always be easily opened to escape. I have seen some people recommend barring windows or screwing them closed. That's a horrible idea for any room where a person sleeps.

I do not recommend any locking mechanism on a bedroom window that cannot easily be opened while under stress.

Do not physically fight an intruder either as the boy friend did in this incident. Any man who breaks in through a window and begins to undress in your daughter's bedroom should be considered armed and dangerous. Instead of fighting with broom sticks and fists, the intruder should have been warned once.

Then they should have been shot.

I'm thankful that no one was seriously hurt in this case, but there's a lot to learn from it. Keep in mind that this was the neighbor too! Usually you can trust your neighbors, but are your neighbors addicted to heroin? For your sake and the sake of your children, I hope they are not. A heroin addict is completely out of their mind, and they can easily become violent.

I've considered covering news stories like the one above for a while now on Steemit. The idea would be to only pick out news stories related to residential physical security. If you have any feedback on the idea, please let me know. I'd also love to hear from people about what advice they would give for the same situation.

Let's all learn together to better secure our homes and protect our loved ones.