Tips To Keep Your Home Safe from Burglars
Keep Thieves Out of Your House!
Tips for a crime free home
Home burglary is a common and distressing crime. Not only can you lose your possessions, but also feel violated and lose your sense of safety in your home.
Here are some helpful tips to help keep your home secure and safe:
1. Use timers
If a house appears occupied, most burglars will simply pass it by.
Automatic timers can be set to mimic your normal patterns during occupancy and create the illusion that there is movement from room to room. You can use timers for lights, radios, and TV’s to create the impression that someone’s home.
Curtains closed or opened all the time are another giveaway that a house is unoccupied. Timers can be used here too so that curtains are closed at night and open during the daytime.
2. Remote defense
For additional security, you can use wireless options, such as Hive, that can be integrated with Google, Nest, and the like to control your home appliances.
3. Mute your phones
The sound of a phone ringing out unanswered in the house makes it obvious there’s no-one there.
Turn off all phone ringers, and lower the volume on your answerphone message.
Alternatively, have your calls forwarded if you’re away for a long period.
4. Make breaking in a tough job
The harder it is to access your home, the less likely it is that a burglar will bother.
Keep your windows and doors locked and never hide a key to your house outside; burglars know exactly where keys are usually ‘hidden!’
Use solid core or metal doors and good quality deadbolt locks with anti-saw pins. Some locks also have an anti-drill feature. The outer casing of the lock should be beveled and made of hardened steel, making it more impact resistant and difficult to twist with a pipe wrench.
Use a heavy four-screw security strike plate to prevent thieves from kicking your door in. The screws you use should be 3 inches long so that they go through the door jamb and are re-anchored in the frame stud.
Integral doors between outbuildings and the main house should be treated the same as the outside doors with the same type of locks fitted.
Reinforce glass door panels with security film to prevent a burglar from reaching through and unlocking the door.
Windows should be connected to your home alarm system and have internal locks so that you can escape in the event of a fire.
Don’t leave ladders or other tools outside in your garden, and always keep sheds locked up.
5. Remove hiding places
Thieves like to have privacy and time to carry out their crimes. The longer it takes to enter a property, and the more exposed they are, the less likely they will be to burgle you.
Get rid of any trees or shrubbery next to windows and doors and use thorny plants like roses in beds that are adjacent to windows.
Outside security lighting is essential, and two-bulb fixtures should protect the main entrances in case one bulb burns out. Exterior lighting with motion detectors is very effective so that your driveway and yard are illuminated if someone approaches.
Your neighbors are more likely to notice that something is amiss while you’re out if the exterior lights are motion-activated, rather than left on all the time.
6. Install a top-quality alarm system
Home alarms make a brilliant deterrent to burglars.
Always use exterior signage and window decals to say that your house is protected by a good-quality alarm system. The system should have window and door alarms and motion sensors. Break-glass sensors are also very effective as they set off the alarm at the sound of a window or door panel being broken.
Never pin your alarm code up anywhere visible in the house!
7. Man’s best friend
The sound of a dog barking unseen inside a house is a very effective burglar deterrent. Adopt a dog at a shelter!
For one thing, the noise can alert passers-by and neighbors to the intruder. Also, if the dog can’t be seen, the burglar has no idea how large the dog is. Even a small dog can be incredibly feisty if a stranger tries to enter Fido’s territory, so your canine companion doesn’t need to be huge to be effective. Here’s a few more tips to keep your home safe.
Burglary is a distressing and all-too-common crime. Take these simple, common-sense precautions to keep your home and family safe and keep the burglars away.
* Just a heads up: this pages contains affiliate links (as an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases)! If you buy something through one of these links, you won't pay a penny more, but we'll get a small commission, which helps keep our tummies full 🐶Thanks! :)
