You don’t need to create a fortress or a fire trap – but to protect your home from burglars there are simple and inexpensive things you can do to deter burglars who target homes with easy access to get-away motorways, the Security TWENTY conference in Dublin heard yesterday.
Among the speakers at the ST18 event at the Red Cow Moran Hotel on the outskirts of the city were (pictured left to right) Peter Murray and Paul Kellett, who began with some stats, including that one in four adults in Ireland has been the victim of a break-in. Among his and Peter’s advice was to add visible secondary locking to your door; there’s also ways to add physical security to windows; and doors and windows make the bulk of the ways that burglars enter properties.
As for the householders’ question before setting off on holiday – should you leave the window blinds up, or down, Peter’s advice was that the best thing you can do is to leave a car in the drive; create an element of doubt in the burglar looking for a target. But as for that actual question, he suggested leaving the blinds up – so that if someone does break in, passers-by can see, and neighbours knowing that you are away will be suspicious.
As for what householders are up against, Peter warned that burglars are looking at show homes, so that they know in advance how to get through a door or window on numerous properties on a new estate; better still (for the thief) if that estate has good access to a motorway, so that it allows the travelling criminal to get there and away quickly, and perhaps burgle a cluster of properties in a few hours (and Peter showed newspaper headline examples).
Earlier Paul Kellett spoke of the risks of telling all about yourself online – if you say for example on Facebook that you are going to a funeral or a wedding, you are basically advertising to the world that your home will be empty at that time; and burglars are scanning social media, he warned. Likewise criminals can view lay-outs of homes for rent, which may also be vacant and vulnerable to forced entry; and learn about the doors and windows of those properties, to better break in.
More in the October 2018 print issue of Professional Security magazine.
