Bur­glars use more than brute force to break into homes. In fact, they’re often very crafty and sneaky when devis­ing their plans.

Below are some of the ways they find the most vul­ner­a­ble tar­gets and gain entry – as well as some tips to foil them!

Bur­glars are always look­ing for signs that you are not home

  • Mul­ti­ple news­pa­pers on your front door – Uncol­lect­ed mail and papers sig­nal that nobody’s home. Have your deliv­ery halt­ed if you will be away, or have a neigh­bour move them to a more dis­crete loca­tion.
  • Uncut lawn – A shag­gy lawn is like uncol­lect­ed mail. Ask or hire a trust­ed friend or neigh­bour to tend to it while you are gone.
  • Uncleared Snow – Undis­turbed snow is the win­ter ver­sion of an uncut lawn. Hav­ing a snowy dri­ve­way or a walk­way with no foot­prints indi­cates a lack of action on the prop­er­ty.
  • Lights nev­er turn on or off – Use a timer to auto­mat­i­cal­ly turn your lights on and off in the evening.
  • Phone ring­ing with­out answer – Although a lot of peo­ple are opt­ing to for­go their home phones these days, this is still an issue for those who do have them. Con­sid­er for­ward­ing your land­line to your mobile phone while you are gone.
  • The dri­ve­way has a car that nev­er leaves, or no addi­tion­al cars have come and gone – Invite a neigh­bour to park in your dri­ve­way once in a while.
  • Social media posts about being out of town – Wait until you get back to post all your vaca­tion pic­tures!

Test­ing to see if you are home

  • Leav­ing fly­ers in the mail­box – A bur­glar might leave fly­ers and see how long it takes to clear them
  • Find­ing your land­line phone num­ber and call­ing – They don’t need to wait for your phone to ring if they have the num­ber them­selves. Our above tip of for­ward­ing your home phone num­ber is espe­cial­ly impor­tant if you have a num­ber list­ed online or in the phone­book.

Look­ing for weak­ness­es in secu­ri­ty

  • Is the alarm con­trol pan­el vis­i­ble from the win­dow? Is it armed? – Always arm your sys­tem, and keep the con­trol pan­el out of view from the out­side, just in case.
  • Is the door locked? – You would be sur­prised how often bur­glars just walk in through the unlocked front door. Always lock up when you go out!
  • Are win­dows above hedges and on the sec­ond floor alarmed as well? – Just because a win­dow is hard­er to access doesn’t mean a bur­glar won’t try to use it.

Cre­at­ing and uncov­er­ing weak­ness­es

  • If you have work on your hous­es like gar­den­ing, appli­ance instal­la­tion, or main­te­nance, beware – These work­ers might be study­ing your house for weak­ness­es, so keep an eye on where they go.
  • Ask­ing to use the wash­room, then unlock­ing the win­dow while in there – Avoid let­ting strangers use the wash­room. If they do, check the win­dow after they leave.

Look­ing for valu­ables

  • Appli­ance and elec­tron­ics box­es out with the recy­cling – A big HD TV box on the curb adver­tis­es to every pass­er-by that you have some new and expen­sive elec­tron­ics inside.
  • Expen­sive items vis­i­ble from the win­dows – Avoid hav­ing expen­sive items eas­i­ly vis­i­ble from the out­side.
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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.