Hondo Home Security, Installed at a Sensible Speed

In 1930 the Hondo Lions Club put up a welcome sign that read, in part, “Don’t Drive Thru it Like Hell.” The wording was later tidied, with a “please” added and “thru” spelled out, but the message survived. Drivers coming into town have been reading some version of it for more than ninety years. It may be the only municipal sign in Texas that doubles as a theology lesson and a speed advisory.

We mention it because the sign gets something right about security, too. Most deterrence is a matter of letting people know they have been noticed. A camera over the driveway, a lit porch, and a yard sign from a real monitoring company all say the same thing the Lions Club said: someone here is paying attention, so behave accordingly.

Hondo exists where it does because of the tracks. The railroad reached the area in 1881, and a historical marker records that the line passed up a depot near the older village on Hondo Creek in favor of a site about five miles west. The new settlement, first called Hondo City, grew fast enough to win a county election in 1892 and take the Medina County seat from Castroville. The limestone courthouse went up in 1893 on land the railroad donated.

World War II added another layer. The Army built Hondo Army Air Field in 1942 to train navigators, and the city incorporated the same year. The field closed in 1946. Today the 2020 Census counts 8,289 residents, and the Census Bureau puts the median age at 33.4. A younger town tends to mean busy schedules and a lot of comings and goings.

Hondo’s housing stock runs from older homes near downtown to newer construction on the edges of town. Older houses are charming and occasionally stubborn. Walls may hide plaster, lath, or a previous owner’s creative electrical work, and nobody wants to open them just to run a sensor wire.

We use wireless door, window, and motion sensors where wiring would mean damage, and hardwired equipment where it makes sense. A home security system should fit the house you have, not the house in the brochure. Pair it with a video doorbell and you can see who is at the front door whether you are in the kitchen or at a ballgame in San Antonio.

The Census Bureau puts Hondo’s owner-occupancy rate at 64.0 percent, which means roughly a third of occupied homes are rented. That matters to both sides of the lease. Texas law sets specific requirements for locks and security devices on rental property, and landlords who skip them invite trouble. Our plain-English guide to the Texas rental security device law lays out what is required.

For landlords, smart locks solve the old problem of keys that walk away with former tenants. You change a code instead of a cylinder. For tenants, a self-contained system with cameras and sensors can move with you when the lease ends, and nobody has to drill a hole in a wall they don’t own.

Small businesses face the same arithmetic as landlords, with a cash drawer added. A shop near the courthouse or a contractor’s yard on the edge of town is usually empty from closing until morning, and that is when trouble prefers to arrive. Business security built for Hondo means monitored contacts on every entry, cameras on the rear door and the lot, and employee codes that record who opened up and who locked up.

Medina County gets the occasional hard freeze, and a split pipe in an empty house can do more damage than most burglars. Temperature and water sensors on a monitored panel send the warning before the floor buckles. Our fire and environmental monitoring covers smoke, carbon monoxide, water, and freeze alerts on the same system that watches your doors.

We are a locally owned San Antonio company, at this work since 2010, carrying Texas DPS Private Security Bureau license B16898. Hondo is a straight run west on U.S. 90 for our technicians. We walk the property with you, test any existing equipment, and leave you a written plan with options. It starts with a free security assessment.