Home security – think like a burglar to keep your house safe

To help ensure you have sufficient and effective home security, think like a burglar to identify easy points of entry and potential targets.

What would get a potential robber’s attention? Would a lot of expensive toys in the front yard catch their eye? Is a growing pile of unread mail a sign that someone hasn’t been home in a while?

Here are some tips and elements to consider, when keeping your property safe from unwanted attention. By taking a few precautions you can fight crime in your own backyard!

• Walk around the house and look for easy access points like doors and windows. Are they locked all of the time? Are there times when they might be left open? Keep doors and windows that can’t easily be seen locked, even if you are at home.
• Do you have large hedges or bushes around your property that a burglar could hide in? Make it hard for thieves and keep bushes and garden trimmed around the house to provide less cover for someone to hide in.
• Install sensor lights – It’s easy for a burglar to work during the dark, but they are more likely to be spotted by a neighbour if there is a spotlight shining on them. Installing sensor lights around the home will ensure lights are splashed on if activity is sensed on the property.
• Simple security systems such as window bars and grates can act as a great deterrent to would be thieves. Bars on a window will make it more likely that a burglar will give up and move on to easier targets.
• Piles of unread mail and pizza flyers are a giveaway to a burglar that there is no-one home. If away on holidays, ask a neighbour to collect the mail or cancel any newspaper subscriptions while you are not at home.
• Burglars know all the usual hiding spots, including places such as in a sock drawer or under the mattress. It can be best to only keep a small amount of emergency cash at home.
• If there is a safe in the house, make sure it is bolted down so that even if a burglar doesn’t have time to crack it open, they can’t take it with them to break into later.
• The best security system is the noise of a TV and lights on inside the house, showing signs of someone being home. If all of the inhabitants of the household are heading out at night, leave a light on at the front of the house or the TV on.

Keep the house safe and stay one step ahead of potential home robberies by putting yourself in a burglar’s shoes. By identifying easy points of access and ensuring there is sufficient security measure in place, you can avoid being identified as an easy target. Prevention is the key, but it is also a good idea to protect your home and contents in case something was to happen.