While it is difficult to protect your home from professional thieves, most home burglaries are done by amateurs. Use Two Men and A Truck’s simple home security tips to ensure your home is safe.
- Plan to burglarise yourself. By doing this, you will be able to discover any weaknesses in your security system that may have previously escaped your notice.
- Lock up your home. An obvious one, but you should lock even if you only go out for a short time. Most burglars walk in through an unlocked door or window.
- Change all the locks. When you have moved home, or have lost your keys, change the locks as soon as possible.
- Your house should appear occupied at all times. Use timers to switch lights and radios on and off when you are not at home.
- Most people ignore an alarm that goes off periodically. If you have a faulty alarm that frequently goes off, get it fixed immediately and tell your neighbours that it has been repaired.
- Use the right locks. A spring-latch lock is easy prey for burglars who are “loiding experts”. Loiding is the method of slipping a plastic credit card against the latch tongue to depress it and unlock the door. A deadbolt lock defies any such attack. It is only vulnerable when there is enough space between the door and its frame to allow an intruder to use power tools or a hacksaw.
- Check references. Before turning your house key over to a professional house cleaner for several hours, make sure that the person is honest and reputable as well as hardworking. Check all references thoroughly.
- Don’t leave notes on your front door. Leaving notes for service people or family members act as a welcome mat for a burglar.
- Install lighting with an infared sensor. This is useful, especially if the entrances to your home are dark. Most thieves do not want to be observed trying to get in a door.
- Keep note of any suspicious people or strange people. They could be checking out you home to potentially burglarise. Be sure to let your neighbours know too.
- Consider you landscaping plan in light of your protection needs. Trees located near windows or shrubbery could shield a burglar from view.
- Ask for credentials from any sales person who requests entry to your home. Ask that their ID be pushed under the door. Many professional burglars use this cover to check out homes. If you’re doubtful, check with the person’s before letting him or her in.
- Dogs are good deterrents to burglars. Even a small noisy dog can be effective as burglars do not like to have attention drawn to their presence. Be aware, however, that trained dogs do not make good pets. Obedience training and attack training are entirely different, and only the former is appropriate for a house pet.
- Reset hinges inside. If there are door hinges on the outside of your house, take down the door and reset the hinges inside. Otherwise all a thief has to do to gain entry to your home is knock out the hinge pin.
- Burglar-proof your glass patio doors. Set a pipe or metal bar in the middle bottom track at the door slide. The pipe should be the same length as the track.
- Protect your windows. Use good locks, an alarm system, burglar resistant glass or many small panes rather than one large area of glass. When installing a window lock, drip some solder on the screw heads. It will stop a burglar from unscrewing the lock after cutting a small hole in the windowpane.