Protecting Your Home From Burglars
Whether you have recently seen an increase in criminal activity in your neighbourhood or you have always been slightly worried about potential burglaries in your area, it is always a sensible choice to take every precaution to ensure that your home is safe from any potential thieves. After all, if you can’t feel safe in your own home, then where can you?
DCUK are the experts when it comes to home security systems, including both CCTV systems and burglar alarms. Although these are incredibly effective tools for protecting your home, it is also important to use these tools in tandem with other methods to ensure that your home is not a target for a potential burglar.
Change Your Locks Immediately If You Lose Your Key
Losing your key is something that can happen to the best of us. After the initial panic, many people accept that the key is lost, opting to use a spare key or getting another key cut. In this situation, you should first think about whether any strangers have been in your house recently. Even if not, it is a great idea to change your locks to avoid any consequences. Put it this way, if someone that has been into your house now has your key, they now have full access to your property at any time they wish.
Although we don’t suggest that you should be paranoid about all of your friends and family, if anyone who knew you had your key as well as the knowledge of your schedule, without a CCTV system or burglar alarm at your property, there would be nothing from stopping them from entering your house while you were out. What’s more, you will most likely not be covered by your home insurance if your possessions were stolen with no signs of forced entry.
Keep Your Keys Out Of Sight
Following on from making sure that you change your locks if you somehow lose your key, you should also make sure that any criminals cannot gain access to your house keys. One common mistake that homeowners make is that they may hide a spare key outside of their property. Because this is so common, this is a burglar’s bread and butter. If you want to avoid making your home an easy target for thieves then you really need to avoid leaving a key outside. If you absolutely have to have a spare key outside then you need to become more creative with where you choose to hide it. For example, you could bury it somewhere outside of the house, or potentially even hollow out an item outside your house to hide a key in. This way you can avoid letting a criminal enter your house without any trouble whatsoever. Even leaving keys inside your house can be a huge mistake if they are still visible to anyone outside so this is something to bear in mind.
Check Your Burglar Alarm
A burglar alarm is essential in the battle against potential thieves. However, you should also make sure that you have bought a high-quality alarm that you can rely on. Many low-quality alarms may go off unexpectedly, you may have even heard one of your neighbours’ alarms going off every other week. The problem with this is that generally, neighbours won’t tend to even care once an alarm has gone off for the third time in one week. If you are having problems with your burglar alarm, the best course of action is to get it replaced or repaired immediately. Once you have done this, it is worth notifying your neighbours that your alarm has been fixed, that way they will know that if your alarm goes off in the future then they should take notice.
Talk To Your Neighbours
In this day and age, a large number of people spend a vast amount of time posting on their social media. For anyone who is very excited about going holiday, they may have told all of their friends through their social media, whether this is talking about their future plans or perhaps simply taking pictures while they are abroad. To a criminal, this is a signal that your house is currently unoccupied and therefore an easy target. We would advise it would be much safer to post holiday pictures after you return to avoid this.
Other than the signals that you send out on social media, there are also tell-tale signs at your property that show that no one is home. For example, if your bins have not been used for a few weeks, this tells a thief that no one has been around for a long time. On top of this, if you plan to leave the country for a long time then having a pile-up of mail at your door or perhaps even an unkempt front garden can be a dead give away.
To solve this, you should make friends with your neighbours and let them know that you will be away. You could even ask them to use your bin while you are away, this is a win-win for both of you. You could also ask a close friend or neighbour to potentially house sit to make it clear to anyone who is watching that your property is not vacant.
Furthermore, you should always aim to have a great relationship with your neighbours. If you make a point of informing your neighbour if you see anyone suspicious around their property then there is a great chance that they will also let you know they see any potential criminals casing your home for a future burglary.
Test Your Home Security
This next tip might sound slightly peculiar but it is a great idea to try and see your house from the perspective of a burglar. By surveying your house, looking to break into your own home, it is possible to discover any weaknesses or potential flaws in your security. We aren’t saying that you should go around smashing your windows, but there may be an entry point to your house that you may have not realised was there. For example, maybe a top floor window at the back of your house is actually easier to reach than you first thought. This may make you think twice before leaving this window open when you leave the house.
Invest In a Porch Light
Criminals do not like being caught in the act. This is why CCTV systems and burglar alarms are incredibly useful for protecting your home from burglars. On top of this, we would also recommend having a porch light that is activated by a motion sensor. Any thief that may approach your house will be very cautious to break into your home if they soon become easily visible for passers-by, as well as being extremely identifiable in CCTV footage.
Conclusion
As you can see, there are many extra steps that you can take to reduce the chances of your home being targeted by criminals. In order to protect your property as much as possible, these tips should be used in conjunction with a high-quality CCTV system and burglar alarm. If you do not currently have these systems installed at your home then DCUK has been the number one choice for home security systems for many years. Call us today on 0208 298 1111 to find out more