Be Excellent To Each Other

Background - My next door neighbours were burgled yesterday. I'm a little annoyed at myself as I was in at the time and did hear one or two noises in the afternoon, but as it was bin day, just put it down to people moving their bins back. It would appear that someone had been watching their house so as to know when the bloke of the couple would leave to head back to work. Also, he works at CEX in town, so I think there's a chance the burglars followed him on the assumption they had gadgets worth stealing. The burglars weren't subtle - they basically kicked the back door in and made off with an Xbox, laptop and some other stuff, but left the telly - although oddly, they cut the cable of the TV. I did wonder if it might be personal - we don't really get much crime here and my neighbours haven't been there that long. Apparently staff at CEX do get a bit of trouble from the general public, but could be coincidental.

Anyway, the point of this thread - I was wondering what you folk do to help either deter burglars or provide yourself with a little extra peace of mind? If burglars are just going to kick a door in, that's going to be quite tricky to stop, so I'm thinking of getting some small camera to overlook the back yard, so at least if something does happen, I might at least get a face or two on camera. Anyone use a camera they would recommend?

Although I've lived here for probably six years now without much in the way of incident, yesterday left me rather on edge last night.

Do you have a burglar alarm? Because that's step one.

I got a "fit it yourself" Yale one and it's perfectly okay. There are probably much better ones now, as it was old when I got it seven years ago.

There is one, but no indication of how it worked (this place is rented, so it was here when I moved in), so it's not currently plugged in. No idea if it actually works at all. The alarm on the front of the house might be the tiniest of deterrents at least.

Step 1: I don't let anyone know what measures I have in place. Security through obscurity.

Step 2: Keep the door unlocked. Accept all challengers.

Step 3: nakedness

Was int one of these Grim...?

https://www.screwfix.com/c/security-iro ... /cat810260

There's an alarm in our new house but it's not working so was going to get it stripped out and replaced with something myself.

I'd agree with an alarm. Having the box on the front of the house is a visual deterrent too. Most burglars want a simple, in and out job so if you can make it harder for them then the chances are that they won't bother.

Same goes for having cameras dotted about outside I guess although I don't have any. I have an alarm though. We had it fitted soon after we moved in and it sends me a text message every time it goes off.

I remember speaking to a police man once and he said that if your property looks less inviting and more secure than a neighbours house, then chances are that a burglar will go there instead.

Has it been anywhere nice?

You can get pretty cheap CCTV setups now as well

My policeman chum disagrees, and says "They're not out to rob some house, they're out to rob your house."

Yes, a Yale wireless one. It was easy peasy to do.

You should check the small print in you home insurance as well

I change mine last year as the small printed stated they wouldn't payout if I was burgled unless I had an alarm.

The Alarm also need to be fitted by a company and comply with an industry standard as well, so in my case a screw fix etc alarm would have been no better than no alarm when it came to a claim.

I've changed it now and doubled checked the fact I have no alarm didn't affect a claim in the event of a break in.

We've got the Yale wireless one. I fitted it and it was pretty painless. Only issue is that the alarm is battery powered so in ~ 2 years time I'm going to have to clamber the side of the house to change the battery.

It calls me if there's a disturbance, but fortunately it hasn't needed to beyond me testing it. Also means the alarm control panel needs to be near a phone line.

How was that in the small print? There's never been an insurance form ever that doesn't ask if you have an alarm, and if you answered no and then they sold you a policy that requires you to have an alarm, well that would just be bizarre.

Just bumped into my neighbours outside the back of the house and had a bit of a chat with them. Seems quite an opportunistic crime - among the items they took, they grabbed a graphics tablet, virgin box (without the remote), make-up, Xbox and DS Games, but ignored a laptop, a tenner left out, various guitars and collectable comics. They don't seem the most professional of thieves at least - they left footprints on the door from where they kicked it in.

There's also a chance the burglars could be something to do with that set of awful neighbours that were in last time. Apparently when they left, aside from putting a hole in the front window (which I'd seen), they'd also done bits of other damage around the house, including damaging the back door, so the burglars might have known it was potentially a soft target.

Oh, something else I meant to add - do any of you use those security pens to mark your expensive stuff with? Most of my stuff isn't individually expensive, but I thought it might be worth marking the Switch and Wii U and laptop for starters.

That's a good question but it was, maybe they thought I had one, but I would have never said so as I'm always very careful to tell insurance companies the right info as they look for any excuse not to pay out. Although appear to have failed there in this case!

The policy in this case was a combined building\contents and had some specific high value items and other coverage extras

I was looking in the policy for something else when I found it. They also told me that was the case when I cancelled it at renewal time.