Homeowner Security Advice during the holiday period
A few simple, practical ideas to help advise people concerning the security of their property during the holiday period:
- Make your house look occupied — park a car in the drive, use timer switches on internal lights, and use external automatic lights.
- Check the strength of your door and window locks; can they easily be prized open? Remember the patio door or any ground floor window at the rear are favourite points of entry for a burglar.
- Check that your windows are all closed before you depart.
- Fit a door chain to the front and rear doors.
- «Fishing» through the letterbox actually happens. Burglars will peer through the letterbox to see if the keys of the house or car are left on the hall table. Either fit a letterbox restrictor or better still, bring your keys upstairs at night.
- Cash, jewellery and small electronic goods remain the juiciest target as they can easily be resold. Consider a strong safe for your jewellery.
- Is your garden shed secure? Many sheds now house expensive bicycles or lawnmowers.
- Always use your alarm system. Remember to have it serviced annually by PSA approved contractor. Better still, have your alarm monitored. In this way your keyholders and the Gardaí will be notified of an attempted intrusion. Your installer will be able to get your system monitored.
- Statistics now show that the bulk of burglaries occur between 11am and 4pm when the house is unoccupied, so remember to make it as difficult as possible for the burglars.
- Before you leave home, have a walk around to double check the perimeter of the house.
- Good neighbours are priceless, keep them abreast of your holiday arrangements.
Remember the burglar is always looking for an easy target and the first few minutes are vital to prevent a break-in. If you can keep the would-be burglar at bay for 3 minutes, they will most likely move on to their next opportunity.
-by John Delaney, Technology Director with GGL Security