SECURITY RULES FOR HOME EXCHANGE

When we are on home exchange we take the utmost care to keep the swappers' home secure. We do not want a burglary to occur because we were careless with locking a door or window while there or after we leave. But I'm not sure that other families, from areas where crime is less expected, are as conscientious about home security.

In revising my home exchange instructions, I decided to add some security rules. I am a little hesitant about this because I don't want to insult anyone's intelligence, and I don't want to make anyone think we live in a dangerous area (in fact, our neighborhood is one of the safest in what has been the safest large city in the US for over a decade).

We recently visited my cousin in Pennsylvania. He was surprised I had locked my new car when I parked it on the street. "We don't lock our cars or our doors here." His neighborly attitude is common in most of the United States. It's not a great idea in a big city, however.

New York City is the safest large city in the US. There is less crime here per capita than in any other city of over 100,000 residents. Still, we have over eight million people living here. Even if we have fewer crimes per person than smaller cities, crime does occur, Our two-mile square neighborhood has more residents than my in-laws' entire county. And we have less crime per person than that region of the South. The difference is we provide fewer opportunities for those crimes to happen to us. Thus, the way we live in Manhattan is different than the normal practices elsewhere. We don't leave our doors unlocked, and we don't want swappers to do so either.

Here are the house rules I came up with to encourage swappers to keep our home safer than might be normal where they live. Take a look at the suggestions below. If you were my swap partner, would this info be: helpful, redundant or scary? Your comments below are appreciated.

"
* When entering or leaving apartment, please lock our front door.
* If someone wants to be let in from downstairs, make sure you know who it is.
* Do not allow security or maintenance inside apartment unless you have called them.
* Please clear all day or overnight guests with us in advance."

If you were my swap partner, would these rules seem logical and helpful or redundant and ridiculous? Your comments are welcome below.

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