So, I filled my vacancy with a nice young family: Dad, who's out in the field for weeks at a time; Mom, who works full-time; and a 3-yo.

When we got to the part where it said "tenant will not change the locks", she said, "Oh, hey, I was meaning to ask you. I use Vivint home security in my current rental, and I'd like to use Vivint at your place, too."

Basically, Vivint has a keypad door lock (with a backup key). She'd give me a copy of the key, and the whole thing would be professionally installed by the Vivint guys. There's also a motion sensor that gets installed in the door frame, and it will keep a record of when the doors get opened and closed. Plus, there's an audio chime that goes off to notify people of an opening door. And there are motion-activated cameras that will observe porches, parking areas, and a few select rooms inside the house. All this feeds into an app on her phone, and she can monitor the house from afar.

So, between the "my husband's always gone" and "I have a three-year-old", I can definitely see how a home security system would be desirable. When we were tenants, we lived on a good block of a bad neighborhood, and we had a security system ourselves. The only part I'm a little nervous about is losing that power-of-the-lock, if that makes sense. Also, my doors are double-drilled for knobs and deadbolts, so I don't know if that would be a problem or not. (Presumably not, as you have to work pretty hard to find doors that aren't double-drilled around here.)

This is the time for you to switch to landlord locks.