Why Burglars Might be Targeting Your Home

Most bur­glars do not choose their tar­gets at ran­dom. They look for homes with spe­cif­ic traits that sig­ni­fy a low­er risk of get­ting caught. And a greater chance of scor­ing a big­ger boun­ty.

In a pre­vi­ous post, we iden­ti­fied sev­er­al weak points bur­glars seek. There are sev­er­al oth­er con­di­tions that many home­own­ers don’t real­ize cause their homes to become tar­gets.

Below, we uncov­er 5 of these home secu­ri­ty fail­ures and why they could make your home a tar­get.

Your home looks vacant

Even the most inex­pe­ri­enced bur­glar knows that vacant homes are a prime tar­get because there’s far less risk of being caught. So, if your home looks dark, whether you’re away, at work or in bed, your home could be their next tar­get.

Solu­tion: Use light timers or oth­er motion sen­sors to make it appear that some­one is home, espe­cial­ly if you’ll be away for sev­er­al days.

The lawn is overgrown

Beyond just an eye­sore, an over­grown lawn is anoth­er sign that your home has been vacant for a while. In the sum­mer, bur­glars will focus on yards where the grass has­n’t been cut, know­ing that the own­ers are prob­a­bly on vaca­tion.

Solu­tion: Make sure the lawn is mowed reg­u­lar­ly, espe­cial­ly if you’ll be away for long peri­ods. If you won’t be home to do it your­self, sched­ule a lawn ser­vice to do it for you.

High bushes and shrubs

The prob­lem with over­grown bush­es is that they help to con­ceal bur­glars who tres­pass on your prop­er­ty, espe­cial­ly if you’re not at home. Bur­glars can hide behind these shrubs so neigh­bour­ing hous­es won’t see them. Sim­i­lar­ly, if the bush­es are in front of your win­dows, you like­ly won’t know the bur­glar is approach­ing your home.

Solu­tion: Keep bush­es cut low, ide­al­ly not taller than waist-length.

Items are left in the yard

Toys, yard tools, sports equip­ment – all the mis­cel­la­neous items that clut­ter your yard can also make your home a tar­get for theft and bur­glary. There are a few rea­sons for this. First, the things them­selves are easy to steal – and while you may not care if a sin­gle rake dis­ap­pears, you’ll be kick­ing your­self if your expen­sive leaf blow­er is stolen from your back patio. Sec­ond, these scat­tered items sig­nal to bur­glars that you gen­er­al­ly have lax secu­ri­ty. This may give the bur­glar more con­fi­dence to open your doors and win­dows.

Solu­tion: Don’t leave items out­side for long peri­ods, espe­cial­ly overnight.

Open curtains/blinds at night

How do bur­glars know if there’s any­thing worth steal­ing inside your home? Sim­ple: if the blinds are open, they look inside! Keep­ing your cur­tains open at night invites thieves to look inside your home and decide whether to attempt entry. Even worse, if you have valu­ables in clear sight (such as elec­tron­ics, jew­el­ry, car keys or med­ica­tions), then you’re increas­ing your risk even fur­ther.

Solu­tion: Keep blinds closed at night, and nev­er put valu­ables where they can be seen from the win­dows.

Request a home security system consultation

Pro­tect your fam­i­ly from the risk of bur­glary and intru­sion. Con­tact a PROTECTION PLUS Secu­ri­ty Con­sul­tant for your no-oblig­a­tion secu­ri­ty sys­tem con­sul­ta­tion today.