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Shelley Osterloh ReportingSummer is the prime time to vacation, but many individuals spend the time away worrying about their empty home. Now there's a program that may help people feel a little more at ease.
It's something almost everyone worries about---leaving your house unattended while you're gone. Many consider hiring a house sitter. Well, how about getting one who wears a badge and drives a police car?
When leaving for vacation, Lehi resident Kevin Beck takes all the recommended precautions.
Kevin Beck: "Lock doors make sure all the lights are off."
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He secures windows, even turns off water valves. But this summer Beck felt more secure leaving town than he ever has before.
Kevin Beck: "We were gone for nine days so we heard about this program from the police where they do the watch. And we've had dealing with our neighborhood and we didn't feel safe so we contacted them to watch our house."
The program is called Vacation Watch, courtesy of Lehi PD.
Kevin Beck: "I didn't even think about it once while we were on our vacation."
Here's how it works: Online you can submit your home address and the days you will be away. By entering vehicle identification info into the secured site, police officers know just who should be at your house and who should not.
Sgt. Jeff Swenson: "We want them to feel safe to live in the community of Lehi."
Sergeant Jeff Swenson says officers make drive-by inspections of the requested residences several times each day. He recognizes, because of the small town setting, the program is fairly unique.
Sgt. Jeff Swenson: "Right now, we're a fairly small community, but in time this city's going to grow pretty big, but we feel we can meet the citizens, what they want and help them out."
Although the program does not act as a substitute for standard safety measures, for Beck and other Lehi residents Vacation Watch is one more reason to like living in a small town, or perhaps just one more reason to take a vacation.
Lehi's program has been in place for almost five years, although the web site was just made available last month. We found a few other Police departments that offer this on-line vacation watch extra patrol service; among them are Sandy, North and South Ogden, and the Iron County Sheriff's Department.
