Crime Proof Home

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.