Better Safe Than Sorry

In the United States, the security of most homes consists of a deadbolt on the front door, a dog, a baseball bat under the bed, a gun, or perhaps even a home security system.  There is, for the most part, no need to barricade ones house by a large wall or have the police on speed dial.  Break-ins and robberies are predominately associated with low-income areas and if your home security system does happen to go off, it’s, more likely than not, a false alarm.  In poverty-stricken, crime-ridden Mexico, however, such is not the case.  Crime runs rampant, street gangs are prominent, and the effectiveness of law enforcement is modest at best.  Because of this, it becomes the duty of homeowners to take home security matters into their own hands—my dad was no exception.     

Our house was one of the most secure properties on our street.  For starters, the entire premises was surrounded by a fifteen-foot-tall, steel reinforced, cement wall that was paired with a solid steel front gate.   At the top of the wall, shards of broken glass were visible and served to deter climbers and those with ladders from hanging or standing on the wall.  The process of affixing the glass to the concrete involved the placing of various glass bottles and jars into the wet concrete before it dried.  Once the cement had dried and the bottles were stuck at the top, workers would then go through with hammers and smash the tops of the glass containers so as to form sharp, pointy edges of glass that would cut intruders. 

This fortress was hardly enough, however, as on the top of the wall sat an additional five feet of electric fence that circulated upwards of 10,000 volts.  When something or someone came in contact with the fence, a loud alarm was rigged to go off in concert with the fence’s shocking of the foreign object/intruder.  The very top of the electric fence was also lined with a single strand of spiraled razor wire which further sent the message that our house was not one to be messed with.

Down on the ground, in the event that an intruder somehow managed to make their way onto the premises, my father had installed six sets of invisible beams at various, strategically-placed points throughout the yard.  If someone somehow compromised the front gate and was able to drive in, they would be forced to cross the invisible field created by the beams which would then set off the main alarm, a silent alarm, and call the police.  The alarm that linked to the invisible beams and electric fence was, by design, loud enough to draw instant attention to our house while also waking the neighbors.
 

Twenty-four hours per day, a private security company was contracted by the inhabitants of our street, Jurica Boulevard, to pace the sidewalks and be on the lookout for suspicious activity.  Their primary job, in addition to being a deterrent, was to ward off criminals, call in for backup, and be the first respondents in the event that someone’s house alarm were to go off.  Internally, our house was outfitted with its own state of the art (for the time) security system which contained motion sensors in every room and hallway, and cameras in the living room, family room, main hallway, and driveway that broadcasted to TV screens in the kitchen, master bedroom, and safe room.  Pepper spray also became a common accessory in my mom’s purse, on my parents’ key chains, and in various drawers and cabinets throughout the house.

To an outsider, such measures may seem excessive or even overkill, but given the uncertainty of the environment we were subjected to, GM and my father pulled out all of the stops when it came to keeping the family safe.  Being a young,  “foreign,” white, mostly non-English-speaking family with nice cars that could be seen from the street made us a particularly appealing target in the eyes of thieves.  With my dad gone at work for most of the day and my mom home alone with only Manuela while my brothers and I were at school, safety was a top priority and something that was not taken lightly.  Thankfully, however, we never had a security emergency or even a close call, but given the circumstances, it was still better to have been safe than sorry.