5 Things Burglars Look for in a Home

How do bur­glars choose which homes to break into? Is it ran­dom? Do they choose the first house they see on the street?

Nope — most bur­glar­ies are not ran­dom at all. That’s because savvy bur­glars know they can increase their odds of avoid­ing detec­tion and scor­ing big­ger loots by tar­get­ing suit­able homes. The ques­tion is: what exact­ly are they look­ing for, and why?

Here are 5 things that make your home a tar­get.

1) A dark house

More specif­i­cal­ly, bur­glars are look­ing for homes that appear vacant. And a house with­out lights on is often a clear sign that no one is home – espe­cial­ly if the place has been dark for sev­er­al days.

Bur­glars pre­fer vacant homes because there’s far less risk of being caught. This is why keep­ing your home well-lit at night or while you’re away is impor­tant. Con­sid­er using timers or smart lights to sched­ule your lights to turn on auto­mat­i­cal­ly dur­ing the evening.

2) Uncollected mail, packages or newspapers

This one is even more telling than an unlit house. If mail or news­pa­pers have been pil­ing up, it’s a sure­fire sign that nobody has been home for days. So even if the home­own­er left some lights on inside, it wouldn’t fool a bur­glar if there’s a mas­sive pile of uncol­lect­ed mail.

If you’re away, plan to have some­one col­lect your mail, news­pa­pers and pack­ages while you’re gone.

3) Overgrown bushes and grass

This is yet anoth­er sign that the house is vacant. If the lawn hasn’t been mowed in weeks, then bur­glars will sus­pect you’re away on vaca­tion.

But that’s not the only rea­son why bur­glars look for over­grown land­scap­ing. High shrub­bery also allows bur­glars to hide as they approach your house. If there’s a high bush close to a win­dow or door, they’ll use that as an entry spot so that neigh­bours can’t see them.

Be sure to keep shrub­bery cut low, and always plan to have your lawn mowed if you’ll be away for an extend­ed peri­od.

4) Lack of a security system

In an inter­view with State Farm, a for­mer bur­glar shared how he and his accom­plices would steer clear of any homes that appeared to have an alarm sys­tem or secu­ri­ty cam­eras. “If I saw a stick­er for a home secu­ri­ty sys­tem, that would have been enough of a deter­rent,” he said. “Once, we broke into a house, and an alarm went off. We imme­di­ate­ly turned around and just ran.”

Secu­ri­ty sys­tems and cam­eras act as pow­er­ful deter­rent that makes bur­glars think twice before tar­get­ing your home. And in the event that they decide to tar­get your house any­way, the alarm sys­tem often scares them off and ensures that author­i­ties are prompt­ly alert­ed.

5) Social posts that show you’re not home

In the social media age, it’s all too com­mon for peo­ple to share pho­tos of their fab­u­lous vaca­tions and get­aways in real-time. But you may not real­ize who is pay­ing atten­tion.

Savvy bur­glars can now eas­i­ly tar­get homes by scour­ing social media for such posts. In many cas­es, it only takes a few clicks to find the home address­es of peo­ple who are telling the world that they’re miles away from home. This is why it’s nev­er a good idea to share these types of posts until after you’ve returned, even if you think you’re only shar­ing them with a close net­work of friends.

Learn more

Con­tact PROTECTION PLUS for a no-oblig­a­tion secu­ri­ty sys­tem con­sul­ta­tion today for more infor­ma­tion on how to pro­tect your home from bur­glary.