According to Thieves, Here’s How to Really Secure Your Home.
A secure home is a comfortable one. Comfort in knowing your family and possessions are safe within your walls and behind your glass offers comfort which cannot be match. And with the number of burglaries in the United States reaching 1.4 million in 2017, the need to protect your home isn’t going away any time soon. So, we took the time to go to the source of information and spoke with an ex-burglar to find out how you can best protect your home against burglaries.
Upgrade Your Locks to Something Uncommon
The door locks you find at your local hardware store can be easily picked. Anyone with rudimentary lock-picking experience will have practiced on locks found at Home Depot or Lowes. Not only because they are affordable to practice on, but because most homeowners use these types of simple locks. The best place to purchase a quality, secure lock would be through your local locksmith or through online lock retailers like security snobs.
Reinforce Your Doors Against Kick-ins
According to the FBI, most home break-ins are caused by burglars kicking in the door. Knowing this, take some time to reinforce your doors against this type of break-in. Here are some options:
- Reinstall new metal strike plates. This will slow down or even prevent entry via a kick.
- Ensure your door has a tight fit. Gaps in doors are places for a crowbar to be inserted and used.
- Reinforce French doors with floor locks or French door reinforcement kits.
- Sliding doors have simple locks and are easy to pick. Reinforce your sliding door with a vertical lock or wooden dowel.
Glass is the Weakest Point of Entry
Your home’s glass windows and doors are hands-down the weakest entry point. This is the single greatest flaw in glass—but you can fix this. Home security window film can be installed over-top your existing windows. This makes your windows extremely resistant to shattering. Window films won’t prevent your glass from breaking when hit with a crowbar—it will hold the glass together so it doesn’t shatter into a thousand pieces leaving a hole for entry. Check out this video below showing it in action.
Proper Outdoor Lighting
With proper outdoor lighting, you’ll discourage burglars from approaching your home. The light will make their approach visible to anyone around including the home-owner. Especially automatic lights, which are programmed to turn-on when they sense movement outside. Exterior lights are also extremely helpful if you’re going to have an exterior video surveillance system.
Exterior Video Surveillance
The rise of home security cameras in the past couple of years has really helped to drive down burglary rates. Most burglars know how long it takes law enforcement to show up in the areas they are active. On average, it takes law enforcement over 5 minutes to respond. So the real deterrent against a burglar is something which either slows down their smash and grab, or something which easily identifies them after the fact. A video surveillance system is the very best way to identify a burglar.
Here’s a great, up-to-date comparison of security cameras published by HomeAlarmReport.com.
Dogs are More Effective than a Home Security System
There, we said it. A big, barking dog is going to do a lot more in terms of preventing burglaries than a home security system. Also, signage posted around your home or yard will be helpful. That said, burglars are smart enough to know when those signs are fake. If you don’t have any dog toys in the back yard, or a fence, it’ll be obvious you don’t have a dog—and if you do it’s a small dog.
For help with installing security window film, AP Tinting can help. For more information, visit our page on security window film here.