Simple Ways to Get Burglars to Skip Your House

Burglar’s want easy targets. Because naturally, the easier the target, the less likely they’ll get caught. So, your goal is to make your home a difficult target.

How can you do this?

First, burglars generally don’t make spur-of-the-moment decisions. They actually spend time researching their potential victims. They will look for things like whether you have a dog, an alarm system, or security cameras.

Two or more of those things is often enough to have a burglar cross you off their list immediately.

Next, they may monitor your comings and goings. Do you have a schedule that rarely changes – including on weekends? If a criminal determines that your house is always vacant during a certain time period, you’ve just moved up on their list.

When you go on vacation, do you take appropriate steps to make your house look attended to? Do you have lights on timers? Do you have a neighbor taking in your newspaper? A house that is dark and free of activity and any sort of monitoring devices is a red flag.

There are several simple things you can do to make your home unattractive to a potential burglar.

1. Don’t leave doors and windows open or unlocked. Sound obvious? It is, but it happens more often than you think. And this includes pet doors. Make sure they are blocked in some manner when the house is unattended. Any opening offers a potential access point for a criminal.
2. If you have a key hidden outside, make sure it’s not in an obvious place like under a welcome mat, in a flower pot, etc.
3. Install inside light timers and vary the times they go on and off.
4. Install motion detector lighting outside. If someone is on your property who shouldn’t be there, a light turning on and highlighting their presence more often than not will scare them off.
5. Install an alarm system and/or security cameras – and put signage on your property that it is present. Members of law enforcement will tell you that this is an enormous deterrent.
6. Join or create a neighborhood watch program – and put up signs that it exists. If criminals know that people in the area are alert and aware, it will likely send them elsewhere.

While there is no way to say anything will be 100% effective, implementing some or all of the above should significantly lower your risk of becoming the victim of a burglary.