Thieves who commit residential burglaries generally are looking for the “easy” hit … the house with no security system, windows left open, nobody home. A home tented for termite treatment is all those things … with a big colorful “sign” advertising that fact.

Typically, a home will be tented one day, fumigated the next, then left vacant another 1-2 days while the poison works. Homeowners are instructed to leave alarms off and sometimes windows open.

Hazard signs are posted, and nobody is supposed to enter. But that doesn’t mean they won’t. We’ve heard multiple stories recently of tented homes being broken into.

So protect yourself. Remove your valuables. Ask neighbors to keep an eye out and report any activity. Do random drive-by checks yourself. You can even consider hiring security.

Ask your pest control company for further recommendations and verify what they do to protect your home. And if a sub-contractor does the tenting, be sure to check them out, too.