For those that seek protecting your homes there are three base areas that are to be considered; obstacles, trapping, and monitoring. Some of these are more excessive, but have seen use in some locations of the United States, Europe, and other parts of the world.

Some of the more common obstacles are fences, barbed or razor wire, and grating over doors and windows. These are meant to keep the would-be criminals out of the house and to ensure that the items of value stay in the house. In many cases, a simple approach is ideal with these and can have a huge impact. Some solid fences will make a house hard to see and also make it where someone in the area is unable to see if someone has scaled the fence.

Trapping is a method that is not very common, as it is both expensive and focused on containing the person that is breaking into the location. Many of these utilize drop doors and metal shutters that are usually referred to as blast doors. The concept it to trap the person within the location until law enforcement or security can remove them. Two variations of these are panic rooms and also hidden rooms for precious items or people to hide in. This also can tie in most safes and secured containers as they are used to trap the items of worth within them.

The last is the most commonly use, monitoring. This can range from magnetic tape on windows and sensors on doors to optical beams within rooms. Some homes and places have used security doors in conjunction with closed caption television or self-locking doors with monitoring devices. Most of these rely on an electronic interface to activate and also some manner of alarm system. The alarm system will typically either be a silent alarm that will alert a security company or the police. The other form of alarm is one that will be tied into a speaker system that will notify the neighborhood that there is someone that is breaking into the location. Both are effective as the main concept is to either scare the person away or to have them arrested.

Most security systems will be designed with the safety of the family in mind and will be fashioned to reflect this. As most people don't have firearms in the house, the alarms are designed to take the threat of this from the intruder and place the power into the protectors that are usually the police.