Six Steps to a Burglar Proof Home

The two enemies of any burglar are time and visibility. The longer and harder you can make their job of entering your home and removing your property, the closer you are to being "burglar proof". Of course in reality, there is no such thing as a 100% burglar proof home, you should still pursue this as if it were an absolute.

If you have a home alarm system, most companies will aim for a five minute response time. Key to the amount of time a burglar has is obviously to ensure that the alarm can detect a burglary as quick as possible.

Burglar Proof Your Home

Six simple ways towards ensuring that the would-be burglar will be detected and hopefully caught in the act are:

  1. Install a glass break detector on your home alarm system. A glass break detector will use an audio signal to detect the sound of your windows being cracked and will trigger the alarm. If the alarm is a silent response it is likely that they could be caught in the act with a fast response time.
  2. Try to minimize the alarm response time. Get into a set routine of how long it takes you to disengage the alarm. Remember, the sooner the alarm is triggered, the sooner the response from the authorities.
  3. Install locks on all of your windows. Especially make sure that the ground floor windows are locked and any other windows that can be accessed by climbing. What kind of methods you use to lock the windows, will depend on the type of window: ones that slide can be locked with a frame blocking lock, such as a piece of wood screwed into a point of the frame, allowing the window to be opened only so far. Windows that rotate inwards on an angle usually come with good locks, but can be secured with the application of window security film. Window security bars are another option.
  4. Install a double deadbolt lock on the outside doors. Any sort of conventional pin and tumbler lock is vulnerable to a common key which the crook has modified into a so-called "bump key". Use a lock that cannot be defeated by a so-called bump key, something like higher-end locks and deadbolts like Medeco locks and Schlage Primus line.
  5. Install a lock on your bedroom door. Make it a high end lock too, which is less likely to be compromised by a bump key.
  6. Bolt down any valuable electronics. Big screen televisions, computers, etc., if possible and make sure you have photos of them, your data is backed up and the items are all engraved.

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