Crooks, robbers, thieves!!
We have had several robberies in our immediate neighborhood, including my next door neighbor.
They all have the same MO of breaking a window in during the day with no one home and grabbing anything quick.
Laptops, phones, keys, jewelry.
They take the hard liquor and leave the expensive wine.
So far they have hit exposed houses with easy access to at least 2 doors from the street.
The Missus and I are debating whether to invest in security cameras or an automatic gate closer.
Due to the local geography, if you are not a mountain goat, my house is only accessible or even visible via my driveway.
We have a neighborhood email list of about 40 people who are discussing options but we have nothing yet except keep the police informed of suspicious cars/people hanging about.
The current options we are looking at are:
Install a high res, low light security camera watching our driveway. Put the DVR in a safe designed for such things and hope to catch them in the act.
Install an automatic gate closer on our driveway (to replace the manual gate closer, ME) and try to keep them out, this of course leaves our neighbors at risk and complicates visitors, UPS and such.
With the gate closed, you are not getting on or off the property without climbing a 6 foot fence or worse.
I can rule out high explosives and vicious dogs right off the bat as they are hard on UPS and other visitors.
The two dogs we have would be much more likely to trip any intruders by sleeping in the path, than bark at them.
I think I am not at too much risk due to location, they can’t case my house if they can’t see it, but I do want to do something.
-Security film can be applied pretty quickly and it makes the window harder to break (plus you don’t wind up with bits of glass all over the place). Couple that with an alarm (including window sensors) and they won’t have an easy entry.
-Install some kind of barrier over the windows, at least until the thugs are caught. You can buy polycarbonate sheets at the hardware store and install them over your windows using some kind of hurricane clip setup; that means there’s minimal fasteners, easy to put up and taking them down isn’t hard but requires something like a screwdriver or a wrench (and you can use tamper-proof fasteners).
-Put up alarm signs; better to warn someone off than to have to replace a damaged window. At the least they may think that somebody else is an easier target.
-Encourage neighbors to be nosy and paranoid; every neighborhood has a few folks who are home during the day, who notice everyone and everything that is going on, etc. If they see something odd they should give the cops a call.
-Keep valuables out of sight and secured. Stick the whiskey in a laundry detergent box in the closet, that kind of thing.
I like the camera idea, as long as it’s obviously visible to the thieves. Are there stay-at-home types that can walk around the neighborhood in small groups during the day?
The following options have had limited success in the past, but are not without hilarious side effects:
Edward: So far we have no visible bars on our windows in our neighborhood, it feels to me that when people start putting them up, it makes the area take a turn for the worse, I want to avoid that if possible.
Wow, I hadn’t heard of security films, sounds interesting, I’ll have to look into it.
I already do that with most things, we have had a small safe for several years that we keep our keys and bags in that we keep locked at all times.
Laptops however, are all over the place as we use them all the time.
As for watching the place, My wife works at home and was actually on our deck, talking to a friend, not 20 feet from the neighbor’s when they were broken into, my 18 year old son, who works nights, was sleeping in his room just on the other side of the fence from the sliding door that was broken and he closed his window because the noise woke him up.
I am definitely going to put up “security” signs, either for video or monitored security system.
J Cubed: I have made an apple cannon in the past, shoots about a quarter mile, but the problem here, unfortunately is detection, not deterrent.
Also I am working on anti gravity but it’s not a ray, it involves vibrating a bose-einstein condensate at many Mhz. Only the condensate gets lighter.
Here’s one company’s product and a video showing them tossing all kinds of stuff at it (including a small BBQ and a child’s bike) as well as assaulting it with a club of some kind.
Hardware and home improvement stores carry various brands (you might want to check for stuff that is specifically sold as a security film, dunno if your generic window tint film will do the job, I suspect not).
Do you have an alarm system?
The feature where burglar alarms call the cops is not very useful, but the audible screamer that goes off when your zones get violated can have a handy deterrent effect.
The burglar may choose to bail and later target a non-alarmed facility.
On edit:
Oh yeah. Don’t count on burglars not climbing a 6-foot fence.
My brother had an audible alarm system, it annoyed his neighbors for years with false alarms then he got burgled anyway, they just ignored it.
Just got back from talking with a salesman at a security place, he said their company held get togethers in the prison and asked questions.
Crooks are not deterred by monitoring systems or gates but they really don’t like their picture taken.
This agrees with experiences I have had with this kind of person.
Several years ago when I caught a guy breaking into my car downtown and held him. He was unimpressed by any threats until I hauled out my camera, then he fled.
