My house is in a nearly crime-free neighborhood (a stolen bicycle or an unlocked car on the street tossed for change now and then) but is close to one that's in the crime news a lot, for drug-related turf wars and bar fights. One night a few years ago, late at night in the summer, from my 2nd floor bedroom, I woke to angry crowd noises from a bar that's about a half mile away as the crow flies but about 2 miles on the streets, punctuated by 3 shots, a change in the crowd noise, then about a minute or so later, 2 sirens. A brawl in the parking lot had one shot dead and the other on the lam. If it's close enough to hear it's close enough to be alarming, even though the state liquor authority closed the place. So... I have an alarm system that calls the police if it's tripped and when the security company calls no one answers the phone in the house (or does but hasn't got the password)- costs me $27.76 per month, and also monitors the house for fire. As others have said, the exterior lights, which light the back yard and the garage are all loaded with 150 watt equivalent bulbs that actually use about 28 watts I think, that are on dusk to dawn- I thought that a place that's well lit all the time would discourage some of those with felonious intent before they began their activities, for 2 reasons: the chance of being seen begins when they walk up to it; and it announces that preparations have been made to make getting away with anything a risky business. Such an assumption is correct: Next to my bed- on the second floor with windows on the back yard and on the driveway- are a 12 gauge loaded with buckshot and a loaded Ruger .44 Magnum in a western-style gunbelt hanging on the inside of the closet door (no kids here). Near the bedroom door but not in view are a loaded Walther PP and spare loaded clip and an M1 carbine with 2 30-round loaded clips at hand. A very bright flashlight is immediately available and so are a hard-wired telephone and my cell phone. Next door the neighbors have a pair of Rottweilers which are as dumb as a box of rocks, but very attentive to what's going on outside, with loud, "big-dog" barks and a deep growl that will make your hair stand up when you hear it. In the detached garage are a fire alarm and an intrusion alarm that makes dogs howl all over the neighborhood whenever it goes off. I had the cellar windows replaced with glass blocks of the sort that let light in but distort the view and are almost impossible to penetrate. All of this in a neighborhood that has had no burglaries or vandalism in the 13 years I've been here. Guess you could say either that I'm prepared, or that I'm paranoid and insecure. Truth is, I'm both.