subject: Best Tips On Making Your Home More Secure [print this page] The process of making your home less of an attractive target for burglars is a little like the joke about the two explorers trying to run away from a pursuing tiger. One of the men stops to take his track shoes out of his backpack and put them on. The other one sees this and tells him, "Why are you bothering with that? They aren't going to allow you to outrun the tiger!" The man with the track shoes replies, "I don't have to outrun the tiger. I just have to outrun you." A lot of burglar-proofing your home is making the other guy's house easier to break into than yours. Why break into this house that's hard to get into when I can go for the easy pickings next door?
1.Call the police or sheriff's department that serves your home to ask if they have a home security inspection program. Most do. They will send out a police or crime prevention officer who will go through the house and make suggestions for low- or no-cost improvements you can make to improve security.
2.Start with the simple measures that many people ignore because "There's nothing in my house worth stealing," or "Burglars don't come around here." Lock your doors, even when you're home. The same goes with windows. If you feel the need to leave a window open, install a screw or nail so that the window can't be opened far enough to admit a person (invite your kid, or borrow a kid, to test this). Put a length of wooden dowel in the track of sliding glass doors to keep it from being forced open. Install a photoelectric cell on your porch light and any exterior lights so it comes on automatically when the sun goes down. If you use CFL or LED lamps, the power consumption is negligible. Install motion-detector flood lights on the sides of your house that have no exterior lighting.
3.Don't try to hide a key in a fake rock, under a planter, or anywhere else near the door. Burglars know better than you where all the good hiding places are.If you need to keep a key available, leave one with a trusted neighbor. Another way to keep yourself from being locked out is to install a keypad-controlled wireless garage door opener.
4.Plant thorny shrubs underneath windows and other portals where a burglar could gain access.
5.Get a dog. A nasty dog that threatens to attack people is just a liability and a lawsuit waiting to happen. Instead, get a friendly dog that goes nuts when he sees someone in your yard or someone comes to the door. My dog wouldn't hurt a soul, but you can't tell that when you hear him on the other side of the door.
6.When you leave the house, leave a radio or television playing. A burglar who enters and hears any evidence of people in the house may decide to leave right then and there. Most burglars just want your stuff; they don't want to find you there.
7.Evaluate whether an entry door into a garage could resist being kicked open. These doors frequently open onto back yards where the kicked door won't be noticed quickly, so the forced entry is concealed. If the garage attaches to the house, it's a quick conduit to everything else you own. Even if the connecting door from the garage to the house is a strong, locked one (rare), you probably have enough tools in your garage that the burglar won't need to bring any with him. Consider replacing any such doors with a solid wood or metal door, reinforced with a locking bar and a very solid door frame.
8.Burglar alarms are only a minor deterrent. Many of them are so poorly installed that the owners stop arming the alarm because of frequent false alarms.They are probably better employed as a deterrent against home invasions while you or your family are in the residence. Check with your police department to determine their policy on responding to burglar alarms.
9.Spend a few hours with a notepad and a digital camera taking pictures of all items of value in your home. Record the brand, model, and serial number of each item, along with when and where you purchased it and how much you paid, if you know. Put the pictures and item descriptions into an electronic document in Word or Excel. There are also pre-made templates and entire software applications available for this purpose, but just about any format will work so loing as the information is there. Encrypt the completed file with a password, and upload it to any of the various "cloud" services like Skydrive or Dropbox. If your computer is stolen or your house burns down, you'll have a list for the police and for insurance purposes. Don't forget to document unique items that might have little value. I once took a burglary report from a Frito-Lay route driver. Among the items taken from his home were some promotional "Frito Bandito" pins and cuff links he had received from his company. He laughed about including them in the report. Later that night, I arrested a teenager for minor in possession of alcohol, and found the pins in his pocket. Most of the rest of the haul was in his car. The Frito Bandito allowed me to connect him to the burglary, and we cleared quite a few cases behind that.
10.A fire safe (one that will protect the contents in a house fire) isn't a bad idea for personal papers and small items like guns and jewelry, but it needs to be bolted down to something solid, like a wall stud or floor joist. Otherwise, the burglar will take the whole thing and crack it open at his leisure. Of course, if the safe is the size of a refrigerator, this is less likely.
11.Get to know your neighbors. You don't have to be their closest friends, but people who know each other will generally look out for one another. I am blessed with good neighbors. When a friend came to visit and parked his car in the driveway, one of my neighbors knocked on the door within a couple of hours to return a tool he hadn't borrowed. He only wanted to see who would answer the door. I have the numbers of my neighbors' cell phones, and if I see something at their home that doesn't look right, I call or visit them. If I don't get an answer, I call the police and let them sort it out. Not once has anyone suggested that I mind my own business. Formation of what amounts to your own little neighborhood watch program is one of the most effective anti-crime measures you can have.
12.On a related note, don't be afraid to call the police when you see something that is "JDLR" (Just Don't Look Right). When I was a police officer, it never bothered me to respond to these calls. I'd rather go to ten of those than take one burglary or home invasion report. Most of the time, the calls turned out to be nothing sinister, but now and again I would get to put the fear of God into an aspiring burglar, or maybe even search his car and find the goods. That is pure gold for cops.
