I Should Have

I Should Have Gotten ClearSecure

I have lived in the same house for over 20 years. I’ve raised 9 children which also means I’ve had the house filled with their friends and their pets and sometimes their friends’ pets. This house has seen its fair share of roughhousing and horseplay. We’ve had wrestling matches, ninja wars, and impromptu volleyball games. Our furniture, carpet, and walls show the wear and tear of so much activity. Amazingly, though, we’ve never had a broken window…until recently.

I always thought that if a window got broken, it would be from the kids playing basketball in the backyard. I don’t know how many times my back window has been hit by a stray basketball. My second guess for a broken window was that one of the kids would hit the front window with the handle of a gardening tool. They do it all the time. Sometimes, I will come home and discover tools standing up next to the house with the handles resting against the front windows. Of course, I could have always gotten a broken window from a sonic boom. Occasionally, we have military planes fly overhead. When they break the sound barrier, we hear a huge boom, and the windows start shaking. A few of my friends and neighbors have had glass break from a sonic boom. It’s rare, but it happens. All things considered, I’m honestly amazed that none of our windows have broken before now.

Recently, we had our first window break. It wasn’t a byproduct of horseplay. It wasn’t from a strong wind, an earthquake, or a military plane flying overhead. It was an intentional act of vandalism. The window was hit from the outside, and glass flew clear across our front room. I’m still in shock that we were victims of a senseless act of vandalism. However, we live in a crazy world, and crazy things sometimes happens.

The incident happened on a Sunday afternoon in January. Nobody in our area replaces windows on Sundays. In fact, there aren’t any glass stores where we live at all. I had to wait until businesses opened on Monday before I could even begin think about getting the glass replaced. Then I had to drive ninety miles to the closest glass shop. Once I was there, I thought getting the window fixed would be quick and easy. I was wrong. When I walked into the store with my window frame, I discovered that they had to order the glass from Salt Lake City and that it could take up to a week before the window was fixed. In the meantime, I basically had a gaping hole in the side of my house.

Did I mention this occurred in January? Do you have any idea how cold January can be? Luckily for us, it has been a mild January. During the day, the temperatures have been climbing all the way up to the mid-forties. At night, we haven’t gotten colder than 15 degrees Fahrenheit. Yes, that’s chilly, but I’ve seen the temps dip below zero, so I’m counting myself lucky. We have boards up over the window, and a blanket is hanging in front of the boards. Even so, each morning when I walk into my front room, I can feel a cool breeze coming from that window. It is a constant battle with the window to keep this part of the house warm.

One chilly morning, I found myself wishing the damage had been done during the summer, but I quickly pushed that thought away. If it had occurred during the summer, we would be battling all sorts of insects wanting to enter the house. I don’t particularly want to invite flies and mosquitos into my house. Besides that, summers are hot. Instead of battling with the window to keep the house warm, I would be waging a war trying to keep the house cool. Let’s face it, there is never a good time for a broken window.

Here’s the other thing: Cleaning up a broken window is not fun, and it’s not easy. It took a long time to pick up all of the bigger pieces of glass. Next, I tried to pick up all of the smaller bits. Finally, the floor needed to be vacuumed…multiple times. It has been over a week since the incident occurred, and I am still finding little shards of glass embedded in the carpet. Cleaning up broken glass is both difficult and time consuming. Replacing the window wasn’t cheap either. Luckily for me, it was a smaller window, so it wasn’t as much as I anticipated. On the other hand, having a piece of ClearSecure’s Safety Film installed on that same window wouldn’t have been that much more, and if you keep in mind the cost of trying to keep the house warm when a window is missing, the Safety Film is probably less money. Before the window was broken, I never looked at it that way. I just saw the cost of the Safety Film and thought of it as something that would be nice to have but not a necessity. How wrong I was!

When the window broke, my first thought was: “I should have gotten ClearSecure.” I realize now that spending money up front to protect the windows in my home would have actually been worth every penny. Besides the money I would have saved replacing the window, I would have saved myself time cleaning. The battle of trying to keep the elements out of my house and the headache of replacing the glass would have been prevented as well. Not only that, I could have avoided worrying about the security of our home. Each night when I lock the front door, part of me wonders: “Why even bother?” The front door is locked, but the window next to it is completely missing. Anyone could enter our home through the empty window frame in a matter of seconds.

ClearSecure’s Safety Film is not free, but it’s not cost-prohibitive either. It’s an investment. When you put Safety Film on your windows, you are investing in the safety and peace of mind that you and your family deserve. Once you have the Safety Film installed, your windows will be safe from roughhousing, horseplaying, impromptu volleyball games, baseballs, earthquakes, tornadoes, and even random acts of violence.

You and your loved ones deserve to be safe. We invest in deadbolts for our front doors and security systems with cameras for the rest of the house. They say that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Our homes (and our businesses) are only as strong as the weakest part of the wall. How strong are your windows? Don’t procrastinate. Check into Safety Film for your windows today. Getting a quote is free and easy. You can’t make an informed decision if you don’t have the information, so at least check into your options. Don’t be like me and find yourself battling the elements and cleaning glass out of your carpet days after an incident occurs. Be proactive. Do something to increase the security of your home or business now.