Inside The Mind Of A Burglar

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.