To many of us, its a familiar scene.
We're considering taking residence in a new area, or a stranger moves into our neighborhood.
Most people are easy to get along with, they have familiar habits and easily identifiable living patterns.
But there's always a few who show all the classic warning signs:

• Up at unusual times and often having a lot of late night company
• Loud, disturbing music and excessive noise
• Domestic arguments with partners, frequent yelling, fights with neighbors

How can we know if this new stranger, or new neighborhood as the case may be, presents a safe living environment for our friends and family? Will our children be able to walk to school or play outdoors without our worrying constantly if they're in danger? Can we walk to our cars safely late at night or early in the morning if they're parked in the street or driveway? And then there's the risk of vandalism to our property, injury of our pets when they're outside, the list goes on.
In our country, it's not always possible to prevent crime before it occurs.
Thus, these considerations are often overlooked until after something bad has happened.
We learn about a criminal offender or sexual predator after they have caused harm to someone.
Unfortunately at that point, the damage is done.
How to Identify Potential Criminals and Avoid Risking Your Safety Often, the best way to avoid negative consequences of criminal activity is to take the problem into our own hands.
We must be responsible for our actions and think about what we can do to get around a bad situation we're faced with.
When we're discussing the avoidance of potentially dangerous strangers in our neighborhood or taking residence in a bad area, we can perform some investigative work and learn of the danger ahead of time.
Your Realtor can often inform you about potentially bad neighbors, or names and phone numbers can be obtained from your county appraisal district's website.
The police station can be contacted for public criminal records such as those of sexual offenders.
Also, other neighbors can often be a very good source of information - just ask.
With only their name or phone number, you can then perform a reverse search in specialized directories to obtain any criminal or court records and other background information.
Names and addresses can be obtained if you have only a phone number.
It's often easy to predict someone's behavioral patterns based upon their history.
As problematic people tend to have previous criminal convictions or police reports, you can easily avoid bad neighborhoods or identify dangerous strangers with this information.