Best Protection Against Burglaries/Intrusions - per Criminologists, Burglars, & Statistics

Watercooler
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Just saw a CNET article summarizing what Criminologists, former Burglars, and statistics indicated was the most effective prevention against burglaries/intrusions.

The summary?

Don’t leave your door unlocked.

:rofl:

In other words, get a smart lock that forces your door to stay locked while you’re away from home (Wyze has a couple devices that will do this for you).

Some other interesting points:

the most common way burglars enter homes is through an unlocked door or window

People often leave the door from the house to the garage unlocked and may not be as diligent about securing garage windows and walk-in doors

most burglars will simply try doors and windows to see what opens, especially in the middle of the day when there aren’t many people around

Yeah, MOST of them do it in the middle of the day.

When doors and windows were locked, burglars surveyed said they preferred kicking in the door as opposed to breaking a window. Kicking a door in makes less noise than broken glass and doesn’t pose a safety risk to the burglar.

So make sure that’s not easy to do.

It helps if you’re not obviously rich:

If there’s evidence of affluence, where a burglar could get a good return on their investment, that type of home will attract burglars

hmm…look poor, got it. I think I’m semi-covered there. Both of my cars are “recovered Titles” from “totalled” insurance write-offs…one of them was a Hail damage car and thus looks like a golfball. :sweat_smile: Not in an “affluent” neighborhood, more lower middle-class type area. I guess that’s a statistical positive.

single-family homes in the middle of the street are more likely to be broken into than homes on the corner [unless it is an apartment building, then corder apartments are targetted more often]

If you were burglarized once, there’s a good chance you’ll be burglarized again within the next 10 days [to come back for something else they saw that they couldn’t take the first time, and to use the entrance they found] before you have a chance to repair your door or window

if the house next door gets burglarized, the probability of your house getting burglarized increases

Best Proven Solutions?

  1. Lock your doors
  2. Rekey locks when you first move in
  3. Install secondary locks on your windows so it can’t move freely
  4. Solid Exterior doors, with no glass, that are hard to kick open
  5. Security Cameras
  6. Home Alarm Systems
  7. Motion Activated Lights

They also said they would leave the property immediately if an alarm sounded.

Wyze’s “Motion Warning” feature or Siren Rules will work well too.

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I think people often overthink or complicate what matters to prevent a burglary. For the majority of cases, simply locking your door is the best option.

You can add extra protection with cameras, alarms, and jammer prevention or whatever other paranoia…but for the most part, basic things like having a smart lock are probably sufficient for most people. There is no need for most people to be militant about PoE, or other things as far as statistics go (though I would still like Wyze having a PoE and RTSP options).

The rest is fun, but mostly unnecessary from a security standard and nothing short of paying for 24 armed security is actually going to STOP someone from getting in if they are determined. Just ask leaders from lots of nations, including the President of Haiti who even had 24/7 armed security and still got his house invaded.

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Or you have criminals that don’t care about anything and are determined like these four hoodlums who broke in a house in North Toronto and demanded the keys off the owner’s cars.

4

Yep. PoE wouldn’t make s difference there either.

A solid door and better latching would’ve probably worked in that particular case just like the article said, and possibly an alarm, or shooting at them through your door before they break it down in the first place. Things like that.

No hoodlum is going to want my cars though :joy:

5

Mine either, they’re parked in the driveway at plain view.

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I’ve also seen suggestions like using longer hardened-steel screws on door hinges and feeding a big dog (i.e., put out food and water bowls and signs to create the appearance that a large dog lives there). Shooting through a door seems legally questionable, and the potential consequences likely depend heavily upon one’s jurisdiction of residence, though on the face it just seems like a bad idea by violating one of the primary rules of firearm safety.

7

I was speaking specifically about the above video of obvious intruders with masks and guns kicking in the door. If someone sees that on their video doorbell, I would call that pretty justified. Others have been ruled self defense for similar situations. But ianal, everyone check your local state laws. Personally, I’d prefer my loved ones do that if they were in a similar situation seeing on the camera people with masks and guns kicking in their door. :man_shrugging: I wouldn’t wait for them to come in and shoot me first.

8

I knew a shady guy who picked up scrap at the shop before the owner found out he was an ex-con sent up for stealing Corvettes for parts. The company he sold the stuff to was a big name place no longer in business.
He said the day after Christmas he would drive up and down the alleys looking for discarded tv boxes and other stuff. He called it ‘going shopping’. Then a week or so later he would break into your house and steal the tv or whatever. Families in the hood would sit in the living room and cut the boxes into smaller pieces to fit in the trash can.