Watching that home from afar

We’re in the high season for the second home. Everywhere you look, as the Labor Day weekend approaches, someone is packing up for the Hamptons, the Vineyard, Nantucket or Tahoe. I’m told that there are unbounded thrills to be had on these sojourns, but I’ve never experienced them. Not only do I not own a second home, I don’t even own a first.

Still, a few of my dearest friends own second homes (I forgive them for it), and one thing has always puzzled me. When you leave your second home, and as September proceeds many will do so, how do you keep it safe?

Houses are given to disrepair, and they can fall victim not only to human threats (burglary, vandalism, piled-up takeout menus) but also to natural disasters and freak plumbing catastrophes. Second homes are, understandably, far away from first homes in most cases, and the greater the distance, the greater the complexities.

Also, many who own second homes rent them to vacationers. Vacation rental sites like Airbnb have turned second homes into cash machines. But renting raises other security questions: How do you deliver and retrieve the keys? How can you make sure the renters haven’t ransacked the place?

I recently looked into these questions and discovered several technologies that might ease the mind of those who own second homes.

Let’s start with the cheap and quick. One important goal for the security of a second home is to disguise the status of the house: You want others to perceive it as a primary residence. That’s where the venerable light and appliance timer comes in.

Today’s timers aren’t clunky, difficult-to-use dials. I found several digital models, meaning they are as easy to operate as a microwave. They’re also inexpensive. The Stanley 38425 TimerMax Digislim sells for about $13 for a pack of two. They were unbelievably simple to use. I was able to set their on-off times without consulting the manual. Better yet, each timer is tiny, so you can install two in the same wall outlet.

I also liked the more sophisticated Woods 59377 Digital 7-Day Lamp/Appliance Timer, which sells for about $14. This model is slightly harder to use than the Stanley, but it offers several additional features. You can set up to eight different on-off times over a week, or select random mode, with your lights switching on and off in a different pattern every day. This might throw off would-be burglars: The unpredictability suggests that a vigilant insomniac lives there.

Another cheap, if slightly goofy, security tactic is to fake out the bad guys. Hardware stores sell a wide range of phony security signs and other gadgets to make a second home look better protected than it is. I picked up a dummy security camera made by a company called UniquExceptional for about $20; it’s made of plastic, but if mounted up high it would look indistinguishable from the real thing. It even has a blinking light, suggesting that it really is doing something.

©2011 The New York Times News Service