#if you want a flashlight that doubles as a weapon that little bitty one in the video isn't gonna do shit

[more-gremlin-than-fae]

So, fun story, I grew up in a mainly white, upper middle class neighbourhood in Canada (living on that street: a dentist, two generations of doctors, three lawyers, a Supreme Court judge, the head of the nearby university's law school, the Japanese Consul). We had semi regular break-ins and everybody knew not to leave shit in the car if you were parking on the street overnight.

We were near a couple of parks and the city doesn't light parks in the suburbs. Everybody also knew where the drug deals went down (on the unlit edges of the park) and by extension where not to take the dog if it was late enough. And what to look out for if you did have to take the dog out so that you knew when to turn around early so you couldn't have seen anything. A house near the park became a grow-up at least 4 times and got raided 4 times in the 15 or so years we lived there. Stolen cars were regularly left on the streets around there.

Man, if you think that shit didn't get reported to the cops, you're dreaming. They'd show up 2 or 3 days later, maybe. It would take months, sometimes years, for them to do anything about the grow-op house when it was turned, yet again, into what was very obviously a grow-op. It took years to get street lights installed on the drug dealer's corner of the park.

This is a neighbourhood where the houses are worth $1 million plus, by the way.

The only time the cops even showed up is when the no-longer-by-then-resident abusive asshole's teenage son was caught stringing fishing wire across the bike paths in the woods at neck height. At that point, they showed up and interviewed everybody, especially if they had a record of you calling them about something to do with this kid or his dad.

Anyway, that's all besides the point except that cops are pretty much useless if you live in the suburbs. Their response time is not fast even for a crime in progress.

My point is that community only goes so far, everybody on our street knew everybody else's business. Break-ins generally happened on long weekends when most of the neighbourhood was away, whether for the day or the whole weekend.

Anyone breaking into your house doesn't want you to be there, it's way less risky for them if nobody's home.

The lady in that video is doing her absolute best to make it look like nobody's home after her husband leaves out the front door with a big old suitcase so it's basically showcasing exactly what not to do in more ways than one. If you're worried about break-ins, you're better off not changing your visible routine in any way, no matter who's home.

I live alone and I do close my blinds at night. And sometimes leave them closed during the day, as randomly as I can. If I'm away there's no easy way to tell from the position of my blinds or curtains. I also have almost all of my lights on a timer, they turn on at sunset, they turn off at bedtime. And I don't generally turn them off before the timed shut off even when I'm home. (This is also a way to make me aware that it is Time For Bed, it's part of my sleep hygiene).

Also, either get an alarm system or at least steal somebody's ADT lawn sign. Even if you never arm the thing, you're less likely to get broken if it looks like you have a monitored alarm system. You've upped the basic level of difficulty to get in and that's usually enough to deter a break-in.

You should keep a flashlight in your nightstand all the time, but that's in case of power outages.

A good whistle will deafen somebody briefly if you blow it right in their ear. And by "good whistle" I mean like a Fox40 - the kind of thing that's intended to get the attention of the Coast Guard from miles away - not a piddly little pea whistle. But the main purpose of a whistle as a self-defense tool is actually community, its primary purpose is to get the attention of anyone nearby that might be able to help. Keeping one under your pillow is pointless unless you're a 5th level Cleric and it's how you summon your Spirit Guardians.