I hear peo­ple com­ment every­day that they feel safe in their neigh­bour­hood…. This of course stops abrupt­ly when a break-in occurs.  The feel­ing of secu­ri­ty and peace of mind is shat­tered, and very dif­fi­cult to restore.   The real­i­ty is that bur­glar­ies are almost always by strangers to the com­mu­ni­ty, not by locals.  It’s impor­tant to fight the com­pla­cen­cy that often comes with the feel­ing of a safe neigh­bour­hood.  A few actions can keep you safe and crime proof your home.
There is no per­fect deter­rent to pro­tect your home against a break-in. But sta­tis­tics show the chance is sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduced if you have a 24 hour mon­i­tored alarm sys­tem.  Sta­tis­tics also con­firm that the amount of prop­er­ty stolen from mon­i­tored homes is less than a home with no alarm sys­tem. Bur­glars just don’t have as much time to do dam­age or steal when an alarm is acti­vat­ed.

In addi­tion to alarms there are many things you can do to the exte­ri­or of your house to pre­vent forced entries.  Keep your shrub­bery and hedges trimmed to avoid block­ing sight lines to win­dows and doors.  Light­ing to all areas is a great deter­rent.  Exte­ri­or doors should be sol­id core, not hol­low using prop­er exte­ri­or hinges. Met­al doors pro­vide the best pro­tec­tion. If you use fenc­ing on your prop­er­ty, remem­ber that if you can’t see out, oth­ers can’t see in. Bur­glars love pri­va­cy.   Any glass that is less than 40 inch­es from a door lock should be secured with either secu­ri­ty film, bars or replaced with lam­i­nate. Install qual­i­ty dead­bolts or high secu­ri­ty locks with strik­er plates that extend at least 12 inch­es on the door frame.

Base­ment win­dows are often very vul­ner­a­ble, con­sid­er win­dow bars but take cau­tion to pro­vide easy release in event of a home fire.  Patio doors should be secured by pin­ning togeth­er or pinned to the track so they can­not be removed from the track.

Keep trees that are close to the house trimmed to pre­vent access to the roof, and store lad­ders in a locked garage.

There are also some com­mon mis­takes peo­ple make. Nev­er put a name­plate out­side our home with our full name. This infor­ma­tion can be used to obtain your phone num­ber to see if you are home.  Avoid leav­ing notes on doors or in mail­box­es for friends telling the world you are not home. Nev­er hide spare keys in all the obvi­ous well known places such as under door mats, flower pots etc. Nev­er leave cash or hand­bags in easy view from out­side your home.  Always keep doors and win­dows locked, even when you are home.   Many homes get robbed while the own­ers are in the back­yard.

Keep­ing your home safe should be a pri­or­i­ty. It’s easy to get com­pla­cent. But remem­ber that the com­pla­cen­cy great­ly increas­es your vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty.

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Allan Baum
Security Industry veteran with over 30+ years in the industry. Founded family owned and operated Protection Plus in 1994 with his wife and has overseen its growth since. In addition to working with his wife and son, Allan has assigned the role of Chief Canine Officer to his trusted dog Waub, who joins him at the office every day.