Seven Tips for Protecting Your Home from Burglary: 1. Prune your plant life: Bushes, shrubs and trees can offer an intruder places to hide and camouflage signs of a break-in. Trim back any overgrown vegetation so that your homes windows, porches, and doors are visible to neighbors and passersby. 2. Draw your drapes and blinds at night or when you’re not home in the day: Use shades, drapes, and other window treatments to keep potentially tempting household items out of view. Burglary is sometimes a crime of opportunity and window-shopping is one way criminals choose potential targets. 3. Don’t advertise new purchases: Be sure not to draw undue attention to your home by discarding empty merchandise boxes at the curb with your trash -- a big problem during the holidays. 4. Utilize motion sensor lighting: Adequate nighttime illumination is critical, because a dark or poorly lit property makes it easier for a burglar to go about unseen. This is a very economical way of making your house a less tempting target. 5. Use interior utility timers: Burglars generally do not want to be confronted by anyone in a home. If they hear sounds, or sense activity, they’ll generally move on. Timers can run from about $5 to $40, depending on their sophistication. A basic plug-in unit can turn a light on and off once or twice a day, whereas a wired digital outlet switch can switch lights on at any number of set or random times. Television and radios can also be connected to a timer to feign that someone is home. 6. Secure and reinforce entry points: Sixty percent of all burglaries take place at ground floor doors and windows. It makes sense to harden these entry points. Always lock all your doors and windows when you are not home. All entry doors should be solid wood or steel-wrapped wood-core doors, and not accented with windows unless you are willing and able to harden those windows with Plexiglas. 7. Install and use deadbolts: A deadbolt should be installed on every exterior entry door. The bolt should have a throw of at least one inch. A single cylinder deadbolt, about $35, has a keyed opening on one side and a knob that can be turned by hand on the other. A double cylinder deadbolt lock, about $45, is keyed on both sides. A double cylinder locks should be used on a door with a glass section or one located near a window.
Posted on: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 23:34:27 +0000
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