My lazy beagle Toby was loudly barking as I’d never heard him before.

Usually I would have waited a minute or two to see if I heard any footsteps, strange noises, or a window breaking, but I didn’t have time to spare. My mother, who had cancer, was bedridden on the couch on the main floor of our house and I needed to get to her before a potential intruder did.

I cleared the house as quickly and safely as I could, and my mother was fine. I never found out what Toby was barking at that night, but I have no doubt he scared away a burglar.

Having my mother restricted to the main floor of the house made it necessary to leave my bedroom that night and make sure she was okay. However, if it’s 3:00 a.m. and you hear a window break or you know someone is trying to enter your house, the last thing you want to do is leave your bedroom to go and confront the person. In the ideal world you would get your family together into your designated safe room (such as your master bedroom) and wait there until the police arrive.

Of course, we don’t live in an ideal world. Perhaps you’re like I was and you have a family member living on the first floor or even in the basement. If this is the case you have no choice but to leave your bedroom; therefore it’s necessary for you to know how to safely clear your house.

If you’ve ever seen the police clear a house, you know they always go in with a minimum of two people. But you and I likely won’t have the choice to grab someone else at 3:00 a.m. to come help us, so here’s how you properly clear a house by yourself, even though it’s a dangerous situation you want to try to avoid at all costs.

The author slightly leans to the left as he’s clearing a corner, so an intruder will hopefully see the gun first before the rest of his body.

First off, if you hear a noise in the middle of the night and you need to clear your house, you had better be able to take one or two steps from your bed and have access to your gun, which should be “cocked and locked.” In other words, the gun should have a round in the chamber so all you have to do is pull the trigger to shoot. Right next to your gun should be your flashlight. I use a SureFire G2X Tactical light.

Many houses have enough ambient light for you to maneuver around without the need to have the flashlight on all of the time, so just use it for target identification purposes so you don’t accidentally shoot the wrong person. (Also, read Tom Givens’ excellent article Flashlight Techniques for Home Defense in the July 2011 issue of CCM.)

FULL ARTICLE HERE