Turning Our Home into a Castle: Gray House

Many of us have heard the term the “gray man” but if you haven’t, the concept is simple. It is the person that blends into their environment that you seem not to pay much notice to. In this article we’re going to talk about that same concept with our homes. This applies whether you live in a high-rise apartment in a densely-populated, urban center or in a cabin in the woods. Sometimes the best security is just not being noticed. A lot of the articles in this series are focusing on things we can do to harden our homes. This article focuses on camouflaging our homes by blending into our environment. We want the bad guy to pass us by and not remember we are even there. 

Let’s start by thinking about the outside appearance of our homes. What is it telling people as they pass by? We want people to see that the house is well kept and occupied. We want the house to blend into the neighborhood so that it is almost forgettable. You’re doing this right if you have friends that say, “I can never tell which house is yours!” What you don’t want is your house advertising anything or having memorable features. We do not want to be the house that people use as a reference point, ex. turn left at the creepy house with the stone gargoyles.  

The exterior paint of our home does not have to be gray, but it needs to blend with our neighbors. We don’t need to have the exact color but try going for the same tone. Making sure that we have good exterior paint shows that our home is well cared for. It doesn’t take long to sand off chipped paint and repaint. These are things that we don’t necessarily notice about our own home, but other people do. The tactical advantage of having good clean paint is that you will notice tool marks where someone may have tried to pry open a window or door more easily than if the paint was already chipped and damaged. So, take a good look at the exterior of your home.  

I personally hate grass but, in my neighborhood, everyone has a green front lawn. So, I keep a green front lawn. Here in the South, I mow it every three days just like my neighbors. Next time you drive through your neighborhood, look at the landscaping and see if your home is in keeping with the theme. Do your neighbors trim their hedges in round shapes or in squares? Is it common to have fenced-in front yards? In my neighborhood, there are a handful of fenced in front yards and they stand out. The one house with a fenced-in front yard that does not stand out, has neatly trimmed hedges that match the hedges of their neighbor’s which then, neatly disguises the chain-link fence.  

If the eyes are the window to the soul, then the windows are the eyes into your home. Remember, once it gets dark outside and you have the lights on inside, it is quite easy for those passersby to see into your home. Curtains, blinds, any window treatments add excellent security preventing passersby from peering in. Just remember to keep your window treatments basic. Avoid curtains with your favorite sports team, etc.  

Let’s talk trash. My next-door neighbor leaves his trashcan on the street for days after the trash truck has come. Everyone else in the neighborhood bring their trashcans up off the street the same day they are emptied. This is telling people that my neighbor may not be home. That may not be the case, he may just be lazy. Items like trashcans, mail, newspapers, etc. act as indicators to the would-be bad guys. Remember, we don’t want to advertise anything. There’s a simple solution to these things. If you are going to be out of town, have a friend get your mail and paper or you can put them on hold. If it’s going to be a long time, have them put the trashcans on the street and take them back up so it appears you have been home. I had a close friend do this very thing for me while I was on a deployment and my family went out West to visit.  

We must be careful what information our homes are putting out about us. I was at my local indoor shooting range a few years back and the gentleman next to me, looking at my target, told me that I should hang that on my front door to let bad guys know this isn’t the home you want to break into.  That’s not what it would say to me. It would say, “This home has guns and possibly other valuables.”  Be careful about the stickers you put on your car because a car sitting in your driveway with an NRA sticker, a Magpul sticker, and a “Don’t Tread on Me” license plate is advertising your valuables. I’m not saying not to have pride, just remember that you’re not home all the time and people want your stuff. My brother-in-law had an extremely large gun safe ripped out of the foundation of his home while he and his family were on vacation. Just food for thought. 

I believe in self-expression but not at the expense of my family’s safety. That’s the point of this article. Sometimes we must sacrifice our individual expressions for a little obscurity. The goal is to not have anything that stands out or be memorable. Think, keep it clean, keep it in good repair, and keep it similar.

Chris