Top Twenty Tips to Prevent Burglary

Burglary

The good news of the 21st century is that the crime rate recorded for burglaries and theft continues to fall in Western countries, although this unfortunately doesn’t mean that it will soon be eliminated entirely; there are still plenty of people who are willing to take things that don’t belong to them.

Interestingly, while most people take precautions against burglaries which might happen during the night, the crimes mostly occur during the day.  It does make sense.  Most people are away at work, and the burglars don’t need to worry about alerting anybody through using torches or other light sources which might give them away.  It’s important for home-owners to spend time making sure their property is secure against burglars at all times of the day or night.

You can’t be too careful when it comes to taking care of home and family, and hopefully the following list will help you to better secure your property against theft. These tips can be used to make your home safer at any time, even when you are on holiday! Theft can account for a lot of the problems in your commercial needs – make it more wasteful for the thief, not you!

1.     Build a fence around your property – this may seem like an obvious one, but making it harder for potential thieves to gain access to the property will dissuade quite a number of them from their intentions. Solid fences are easier to climb, so choose for preference a link fence, although they can look rather industrial

2.     Put everything in the garage – another obvious one, but putting cars and bikes out of view will be less of a temptation for potential thieves.  It will also be more difficult for them to get at the items

3.     Secure your car – if you don’t have a garage or a dedicated parking spot, then take steps to make sure your car is as secure as it can be.  Lock the doors, consider one of those handles which immobilise the steering wheel, and so on

4.     Make friends in the community –if you make an effort to know your neighbours, they are more likely to keep an eye out for suspicious people in and around your house.  The same applies to them

5.     Keep a clean garden – thieves may see a garden with toys and furniture scattered about as an indication that there is more of the same indoors

6.     Keep trees and plants trimmed – untidy bushes make it more difficult to see what is going on, and trees can be used by thieves to climb into upstairs windows

7.     Keep everything locked – this is another obvious one, but thieves are usually looking for an easy target.  If they can’t get into your property, they might give up

8.     Install reflective numbers for your house – this can make it easier for police to identify your house if there is a burglary in progress

9.     Change the locks of a new house – You don’t know how many people have keys to a new house!  When you move into somewhere new, change the locks so you know how many keys there are, and who has them

10.  Use a safe – try and keep all valuables in a safe

11.  Don’t hide spare keys outside – the key outside is good if you lock yourself out, but they can be found by other people, and used to commit theft

12.  Add privacy film to decorative glass – the glass decorations which can be found on many exterior doors are beautiful, but they can be a bit of a risk, since they allow people to see in.  Privacy film will distort the view through the glass – it isn’t fool-proof, but it is better than leaving the glass undisturbed

13.  Buy a home security system – having a home security system serves two main purposes, with a third only existing on certain models.  The presence may dissuade some thieves, the sound of it going off might alert the neighbours, and (only in some models) it can be set up to alert the nearest police station if it goes off

14.  Use safety glass – glass by itself is easily broken.  Reinforce windows with safety glass or metal bars to avoid people gaining access through them

15.  Put a light or two on a timer – having lights on in the house will give the illusion that there is someone there, even if this is not true. Put a few on timers to come on and go off at pre-set times

16.  Put a radio on – would-be robbers will sometimes ring the doorbell or the phone to check if somebody is at home.  Having a radio on will mean that they can’t be sure if people are at home or not

17.  Use the deadbolts – door locks are surprisingly easy to open with simple tools.  Deadbolts are much harder to bypass

18.  Avoid taxis – sometimes taxi drivers make extra money by telling robbers when people are out of the house.  Avoid this by being picked up away from your house

19.  Use cameras – Having visible cameras can deter robbers, because there is too much risk of being caught.  Having them can also mean that the robber can be caught more easily

20.  Motion-detection sensors – have external lights on a motion sensor – the sudden light will scare many thieves off, and also alert neighbours

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Light up a north facing room
Light up a north facing room

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