As DH's health has declined, I've been thinking more and more about safety for an old lady (me) living alone. Since DH was gone from home for weeks at a time during his last few years of work, this was something to consider even before he was diagnosed. This was also a frequent topic in a caregiver support group I attended for years, so I know I'm not the only person who thinks about this. It seems we mostly talk about keeping our loved ones safe, but as we age, especially, we are becoming more vulnerable ourselves.
What I have done--so far--is pretty simple. Some time back DH cut lengths of white PVC pipe to fit in the top part of all the windows, so they can't be raised. (We did put a loop of heavy tape around the pipe, so it could be pulled out quickly in an emergency.) We have reinforced strike plates for the outside door locks. Where possible, we've always had multiple locks on a door, instead of just one. We also have a burglar bar we use when we are home.
One hint from another caregiver that surprised me (my car won't do this) is keeping your car keys by the bed, so you can make your car alarm go off if there is a sudden problem. Other caregivers were very careful to always have a cell phone on their person, so in case of a fall or other emergency they could call for help. At night I like to have a regular phone and a cell phone by the bed. When DH was on the road, I had more serious armament by the bed, which has been completely removed from the house for obvious reasons. (I started target shooting when I was about 12, so yes, I do know how to use a gun.)
When DH was on the road, sometimes when I was out and about, I would call home and leave a message on the answering machine as to where I was and when I would be home. It made me feel better to know that if I didn't make it home, someone would be able to find some record of my plans.
Rereading what I wrote, it does sound just a little paranoid, but when you hear a strange noise at 3:00 a.m., it doesn't seem like too much. Also, even when we lived in a "nice" subdivision, someone tried to break into our next door neighbor's house in the middle of the night. (Maybe they tried our house first, and found it too difficult!) I also found footprints--in the snow, no less--of someone who had gone around trying to peer into our windows while DH was gone. So maybe I have a reason for a little paranoia.
Does anyone have any other ideas for safety while living alone?
Yes I do! A few months ago I had a drone helicopter looking in my window. I called the alarm company and I now have a cell alarm. I don't have a house phone because I use my cell all the time. They installer told me that people are using the drones to look in your house to see what they can steal and if you are home. I like the cell alarm because there are no wires to cut like with the old home phones. I sleep better and I am not rushing home to see if my a Yorkie is safe. He can run around the house and doesn't set it off. I think we have enough stress to live with without this kind of fear as well.
Most of the safety precautions in our home have been to protect my husband from escaping or getting hurt. Of course they benefit me too in providing an extra layer of protection in addition to what we would have had normally. Like others, I carry a cell phone with me at all times but I am also thinking of getting one of the personal alarms like the one John Walsh endorses Great Call which costs $19.99/ month in case I fall because if no one is home I can't get up by myself. I am also considering a security system with indoor/outdoor cameras because we are on a secluded lot and because I have substitute aides who come in and I want to be able to see how they interact with my husband when they're getting him ready for bed, etc.
My daughter got a wrist id for me. I go for long walks at night in my gated community. Still-if I fell in the dark my daughter's contact info is on my wrist. Family all have FitBits and we are synched on our commputers. If mine shows no action they will call to see if I'm ok.
I got Great Call simply because it works outside the home-no matter where you are. It does the job here in Fl as well as it did in Ky before I moved! Reasonably priced, real people talk to you and they know your location when you press the alarm button.
Consider that car alarms go off 99% of the time for reasons unrelated to crime so don't bother with any solution related to one. People will ignore your car alarm, they might try to contact you or the police not because they think there is a problem but to get you to turn off the darn alarm.
I suspect the biggest threat is having a health problem. So a device that detects that you fell and didn't get up would be valuable.
I have the Great Call for medical emergencies or falls.I try to temember to take it when I go down to basement or outside.I live very isolated,we have no local police ,state police are 25+ miles away.For home secutirty ,I have a Doberman ,a loaded ruger revolver and a shotgun.Am thinking of getting another Doberman.
yhouniey, like you I live in an isolated community.
My cell phone doesn't work where I live - service is very spotty, even for the best of cell phone service providers.
The local police are 25 minutes away, same for ambulance/paramedics. When I had a health emergency last year, I called a neighbor to take me to the hospital because I knew it would be faster. Actually, calling for the ambulance never even occurred to me. My neighbors have proven time and again that I can count on them when I need help. And they check in on me from time to time to make sure I am okay.
Now that I am living alone, I do keep the doors locked, even when I am at home. This is not so much to prevent break ins as to keep from being startled by some one coming to the door, knocking and then entering before I get a chance to get to the door. Most of my neighbors do not lock their doors, whether they are home or not.
I don't own a gun, nor do I want one. And although it might be nice to have a dog for company (and an early warning system), it would also tie me down.
I suppose that something like Great Call would be useful for me, particularly since I may not be able to get to a phone to call a neighbor in the case of a fall. Its something for me to think about.
Vickie, I had wondered about that. If OnStar and Great Call use satellite transmission, and not cell towers, then it shouldn't be a problem for me. I know my Garmin GPS works at the house.
I guess I will have to call one of the services and see if it is available in our area. I do sometimes feel that my greatest risk is to have a medical emergency when no one is about. I am quite active, and do a lot of the property maintenance chores myself, and although I always take safety precautions before I do anything, there is always a possibility of an accident or some other health related issue that might require medical attention.
I used my Great Call 2 months ago to call an ambulance. I could have used my house phone but thought I 'd see how prompt GC was. Cell phone is very spotty in my area,but the GC went thru immediately.Person on the line was very good,I think you can also call them with health questions,like Highmarks "nurse on call"
If you get poor/none cell service at your home but have decent Internet connection some cell services will provide a base station for your home. Your cell phone will connect to the cell system via this base station which then relays the calls over the Internet. I think that AT&T will provide these for free. Of course this doesn't work if you lose Internet or power.
I assume that you have tried other cell providers since coverage will vary with each provider.
When I visit my FIL I can't count on having a strong enough cell signal for a call unless I go up to his 2nd floor. Used to be worse.
When I was a public health nurse and folks needed a landline phone for their Voice of Help buttons to work, the phone company would install a landline for some minimal fee (phone bill was around $8.00 per month as I recall), just to enable the patient to have a means of emergency notification. The technology may have gone past that, though, by this time. I'm thinking of cases I had seven or eight years ago. There was a part of the county where no cell phones would work...zip, nada, zero. (Myrtle, if you're reading this, it is in and around Wassaic in Dutchess county, NY.)
Here in the Heartland, Armstrong Cable still encourages their customers to keep a landline for the sake of better reception sometimes, or for a means of communication if the cell phone has dead batteries or gets dropped in the sink or whatever. I made sure I had a landline just in case Larry's aides might need it. And I keep it now for myself for times when I am calling somewhere and know I have to sit on hold for a long time...easier on the hand than the little cell phone.Or if I'm calling somewhere like Canada, where I want to be able to hear and understand really well. But the ringer is turned off, and I don't bother giving anyone the number.
elizabeth, I can easily believe that there is no cell phone service in that area. It may be due not just to the lack of towers but also to the topography. So many communities are tucked into the hollows of the mountains. The techies and engineers on this site can correct me, but I think cell phones use line-of-sight signals (like FM radio) so it would be difficult to position a tower to reach communities like that.
when we were with Verizon we still had tri-mode phones: analog and digital. No matter where we traveled in the US not having a signal was very rare. Then phones and networks went all digital and we lost that valuable option. We were told by a campground on the west side of Death Valley that the fire department using analog, which many especially smaller ones still do, so we could get cell signal through their tower if we had an analog phone which we still had at the time.