When securing the neighbourhood, we often need to consider how we can do this individually. Security experts have spoken about ‘Hardening the Target’. This means making it difficult in general to find a place that can easily be broken into.
Here are some tips you can work on to help make your home safer.
Put a “Beware of Dog” sign at your front gate (even if you don’t have a dog). I don’t know about you but one of my dogs will probably sleep through a burglary. The other one will bark until everyone in the house is awake. A sign will make anyone think twice!
Lock all your gates, and check them before retiring for the evening. So often we just forget to lock the gate and this makes it easy for the grubs to get in and sniff around. Making a routine to check each night is easy and can really help keep you safer.
Lock your internal door to your garage if you have one. This way, if someone does get into you garage, they can’t get into the house to find the car keys or other valuables.
Hide your car keys, handbags and any valuables in a safe spot (not easily accessible) at night. Many of the intruders we’ve heard about have found car keys on the table, sideboard or bench. Find a convenient, but less visible spot. Bonus: you’ll know where your keys are each time.
Don’t leave the back door open or unlocked if you are in another part of your home for an extended time. In the 1970s we used to leave the house unlocked when going grocery shopping in case the neighbour needed some sugar or eggs. 50 or so years later, we live in a different age and it’s wise to keep the place locked up even if you’re at home or relaxing by the pool.
Don’t leave valuables in plain sight in your car (even if it’s in the garage). Cars are a convenient and valuable target, but they can be replaced. Leaving your purse or any other valuables in your car can make it an even more valuable target.
Install sensor lights. These go off and alert you, or the neighbours dog, that there’s something going on. Even if it’s just Bob from down the street coming home after a night at Benowa Tavern.
Install cameras. We all know that these brazen thieves will smile for the camera and tend to not care, however we’ve found that by sharing footage we can establish some sort of evidence that can be useful to the police.
