15 Home Burglary Tips

Here are some great home burglary tips. Remember, a burglary takes place every 15 seconds in the U.S.

1. People are your best defense — be a visibly nosy neighbor. Let anyone walking the neighborhood or sitting in a parked car see you watching them. Make a note of car license plates and if anyone behaves suspiciously or stays in their car for a lengthy period, call the police.
2. Tell close neighbors you trust if you plan to be away or expect any deliveries. If they’re in the know they’re more likely to notice something you didn’t mention and spot unexpected callers at your home (burglars often call at the front door of a house to check if anyone is there).
3. And, if you are going away, use timers to switch lights on and off at random, cancel newspapers and put a hold on your mail deliveries — or, to guard your schedule, arrange for the trusted neighbor to collect them.
4. Having a dog is a huge deterrent. Ironically, burglars are far more likely to avoid a house with a small dog than a big one — small dogs tend to be nervous and less easy to trick into calming down. They’re less trustful and bark louder and longer.
5. Take a walk around your home, inside and out, to figure where the weakest link in your security might be — like leaving a window open in a secluded spot. High-risk places include the door from your garage into the house, back doors, side “breezeways” where a burglar would not be seen, and large shrubs close to the residence where thieves could hide.
6. Take action to increase protection in these vulnerable places — like installing keyed window locks and deadbolts on doors and using toughened glass in windows and doors. Remove those shrubs. If you leave windows open on the second floor, make sure your extension ladder is locked away.
7. Be wary about who you allow into your home and how much information you give about your belongings and schedule. This applies even with neighbors you don’t know or fully trust (“inside” jobs are not uncommon). And don’t leave valuables in view, inside or from outside the house.
8. If you’re able, vary the times you leave and return home. If your household has several cars, vary who drives them, making it more difficult for an observer to know who is home and when.
9. Make it tough for home burglary prowlers to know whether they’re under surveillance. Dummy security cameras can be good — but only if they could be taken for the real thing.
10. Control access to and around your property. Consider motion-activated lights, even on the street outside your home. Neighborhood Watch, Video Surveillance, No Parking,and No Outlet signs can be effective against home burglary too. This way, would-be thieves know you mean business.
11. Motion-activated cameras are another powerful weapon — both as a home burglary deterrent and, linked to a computer (and, better yet, to a home network), to record images of your unwelcome visitors.
12. Avoid creating temptation. Don’t leave things like lawn mowers and bikes unattended outside; lock them up.
13. Don’t hide a key. Home burglary crooks know all those “secret” places.

Click the image below for more information about dummy security cameras that are easy to install and look exactly like the “real thing”.