With the spike in home burglaries over the past few years, it's unlikely that you'll be cracking the window open on a hot summer night or leaving the doors unlocked as you quickly run to the store.
No need to worry though; there are many hassle-free and cost-effective methods of securing your home. Here are 19 ways to help prevent home burglaries:
1. Yard Lighting
After sunset, your yard offers burglars convenient hiding spots. Burglars can hide in your shrubs, bushes, and the like. Illuminate the outside of your home so burglars can’t hide and make any suspicious activity as easy to spot as in daylight.
2. Improve Visibility
If your home isn’t visible from the road, or vice versa, it is a cause for concern. Anyone approaching your house will remain unseen and your neighbors will be unable to watch for suspicious activity. By doing some landscaping, trimming your hedges, and cutting down low hanging branches obstructing the view you can improve your visibility.
3. Fence your Property
Build a boundary wall or put up a fence around your property. This will help people discern where your property starts, therefore, making it easier to tell if someone is merely unwanted or a burglar. This wall or fence puts an additional layer of security between you and a potential burglar.
4. Get a Perimeter Outdoor Security System
An Outdoor Security System like Perimeter will instantly alert you to anyone on your property day or night in time to do something about it. Setting up a Perimeter system and activating Ava is easy and convenient. With an AI like Ava detecting people sooner and more accurately than cameras alone, your Perimeter system will give you time to respond to and deter any potential burglars.
5. Lock Your Doors
While it seems like a very obvious thing to do, homeowners tend to overlook it all the same. Homeowners think the front door is too obvious an entrance for burglary or that a burglar wouldn’t use the garage door. In reality, burglars opt for the quietest way to gain entrance to your home. Why break in when you can simply walk through the front door without raising alarm?
6. Reinforce your Door
While locking your door serves as an added layer of security, it serves no purpose if it will give way on a single kick. Most doors are installed with screws that barely penetrate the door. Only long screws bite into the stud. Adding metal sleeves around the lock and extended steel plates strengthen your door to withstand kicks and shoves.
7. Hide Expensive Items
Don’t leave expensive items lying around. When not in use, store them safely. An expensive item may attract the attention of a burglar, therefore making your home their next target.
8. Spare Keys
It is important to always have a spare key to your house, but hiding them under doormats and potted plants is unsafe. We suggest entrusting your keys to a neighbor or a reliable friend instead.
9. Join Nextdoor or Your Neighborhood Facebook Group
Nextdoor and the Facebook group for the neighborhood (if you have one) is a great way to stay in touch with your local community, share current happenings in the area, and alert them to suspicious persons and activity.
10. Be Wary of Service Providers
Service providers often have unrestricted access to your house and some familiarity with your routine. Schedule their visits in your presence and supervise them during their time inside your home. Burglars may disguise themselves as service providers and use their visit as a reconnaissance mission for burgling your house.
11. Install Motion Lights
Not only are these convenient when taking the garbage or your dog out at night, they also provide more visibility for spotting and startling potential thieves.
12. Home Security System
A home security system will alert you to the presence of an intruder inside your home. While home security systems commonly set-off unintentionally, make sure you or someone who you have trusted with your passcode can quickly disarm.
13. Alarm your Windows
Installing a window alarm is an additional security measure and will immediately alert you when someone is trying to enter your home.
14. Put Locks On Your Gates
Burglary-of-convenience can sometimes be thwarted by removing easy access to gated areas around your property.
15. Cover Your Windows
The idea of massive windows is very pleasant because the view of your property is soothing, but it also gives potential burglars a clear view of the inside of your home. All your valuables are on display and may tempt them. A privacy film will give you reasonable protection during the day, but you will need blinds or curtains for the night.
16. Keep Your Neighbors Informed
When you plan on being away from home more than a night, make it a point to inform your neighbors. They can keep an eye on your house and even drop in at your house to give the impression that the house is being lived in.
17. House Sitter
If you plan on going away for a longer timeframe, enlist the help of a friend or family member to stay at your house in your absence. This way your home is never empty and burglars will remain deterred.
18. Newspapers and Mail
When you’re away from home for days, newspapers and mail tend to collect at your doorstep or your mailbox begins to overflow; a dead giveaway that no one has been home in some time. Therefore, discontinue your subscription and delay any scheduled deliveries till you are back. Request your neighbor to collect any mail that will inescapably be delivered in your absence.
19. Short Trips
If your trips away from home are unavoidable, keep them short and only leave your house alone for smaller periods. Break a long trip into two smaller ones. Burglars are always on the lookout for an empty house to make an easy score.
Securing your house and protecting your home from burglary is not as difficult as it appears. In fact, with our help, it’s 19 simple ways to ensure that your home and loved ones are always safe and your property protected.
