Home security

We have a new rescue dog. He is a little sweetie but quite anxious. He barks if anyone comes to the door and frankly sounds really nasty. He isn’t actually aggressive and is barking out of fear, but you’d have to be pretty brave / reckless to chance coming in. We have also put pet cameras in to keep an eye on the dog when we go out. They are amazingly inexpensive £22 per camera and are motion activated and alert you via your phone. They can also be turned to privacy mode when we are home. Although we got them for the dog it feels quite reassuring.

Should read, with intruders vandals

Had a family member who was involved in security of all kinds of premises. He thought the worst thing you can do is have lights all round your house. All you are doing is giving the culprits light to see what they are doing. A motion sensor light is fine. Cameras are okay but wuth intruders vsbdals usually wearing hoodies and masks all you get is to see what they are up to. If wearing identifiable clothing cameras very rarely useful for identification. Small time thieves can be put off if a camera is visible. Good bump proof locks, motion sensor lights, alarm are thought to be good. Or a big barking dog!

I have an alarm which is monitored and I get a call on my mobile phone if anything is triggered. So far I've only been notified of power cuts when I had an electrical fault. When I was on holiday I had a friend go in to reset the trip switch whenever the alarm notified me! Having had the fault dealt with now the alarm hasn't triggered since.
The impression I get is that most burglaries are opportunists unless they think you have valuables. My next door neighbours were burgled by kicking in the front door which had a panel in the middle that was presumably not very strong. The edge of the door was left locked in place with the middle of the door gone. The neighbour rang me and his neighbour the other side to ask if his alarm was ringing as he'd had a notification on his phone. We both rushed round and ended up waiting outside for the police who he'd already called. The burglars had long gone as they had disabled the alarm by pulling it off the wall into a container they had filled with water so it wasn't ringing, but it had notified the neighbour before they managed to silence it! They obviously had it well planned and they had targetted specific valuables and didn't touch anything else. It was all very dramatic and quite scary.
My next door neighbours the other side were burgled a few years ago but they had left a downstairs window open, so opportunist. I think if anyone broke into my house they would be rather disappointed with what they'd find!

We have a monitored alarm system - burglar, fire and flood. Anglian Security & Fire, which you can find online.

Have all the usual locks on external doors and windows, camera doorbell and camera at the back, but also have Chubb locks on downstairs internal doors. So if anyone breaks in they can’t get out of that one room.

Lol glad I'm not the only one that hates their ads! Horrendous...all of them...

If been burgled in the night in a seemingly safe area you change thinking pattern 😱
Iv got internal locks downstairs now it would make racket to get through to upstairs.

We also have a key safe outside the house. My mother used one and carers/ambulance crew could be given the code.

We have a video door bell and house alarm with door with alarm sensors then internal infrared detectors and some windows alarmed. We do not use it much as house occupied most of time. But if I am alone in house at night I would set alarm from an upstairs panel that allows use of upstairs of house. There is also a panic button near the front door. There is also a bird feeder with camera that picks up activity and records, at back of house even in the dark. A siren and light can be activated via a phone app.

I think it’s wise to have some sort of security.
We have dusk till Dawn security lights at the back of the house. And recently installed cameras back and front. Most of our neighbours also have cameras. Lights and alarms I think it’s sensible to have a deterrent. We don’t have anything worth stealing but it’s the thought of someone being in your house uninvited which scares me.

We have ring door bell. Security lights. Electric gate. CCTv. And an alarm. Keep doors locked of you are watching TV. Don't leave keys in doors. Also widow locks and make sure locks cannot be snapped off.

I don't have a ring type doorbell, security lights are only down the sideway mainly so I can see the central heating boiler if that goes wrong. I've also been known to forget to lock the front door, I've even left the key in the door to help people get in!! I was woken by someone trying to get in the front door a few months ago, luckily I'd locked up, they didn't get in but did turn a flower pot upside down. I reported it the following morning to the local police and I had three visits from them in the space of 2 days so I can't complain about them. I'm pleased to say I now remember to lock up every night.

As a student I lived on a sink council estate in one of the roughest areas of Manchester. I was burgled twice. On the first visit they got away with a video recorder and my passport. On the second occasion I surprised the burglar and threatened him with a freezer knife - the kind with a long blade and jagged edges. I told him "This knife cuts frozen meat so now Im going to see what it can do to human flesh." He jumped off the balcony in panic and was last seen limping off. I never had another attempt. I guess I scared him.

Since I moved to this area I had an attempt by scammers (posing as workpeople) to talk their way into my house but I saw through them and called the police.

I keep a baseball bat behind the kitchen door.

We had an opportunistic burglary in the distant past where the thief put a brick through the french windows. At this time we didn't have an alarm as we had four children who would probably have set it off or forgotten to put it on regularly. We did have a safe for valuables and essential paperwork which I would always recommend. Everything else is replaceable.

We had a burglar alarm at our last house as the children had left home and we quickly got used to using it. We don't bother where we live now because we have many close neighbours overlooking our property and anybody breaking in would be very visible. We do however have two high security locks on each external door.

I don't much like shutters, they're time consuming, a nuisance and don't look good. Also if you ever come to sell your property I think that they might discourage buyers.

You could have a monitored alarm but that is a pretty expensive service. I was the point of contact for a neighbour's alarm service and don't really see the point of it as they phoned me and not the police. And I could hear the alarm in any case, so why bother?

I’ve lived in many different houses, some very secure and some not. I have never been burgled. I think it might be because I always have the landing light on.

I have often wondered about the collect from home holidays. One company brochure shows a car with their logo on the side., I think I would prefer to be collected from a family's home . I have no concern with the company just casual observers

You don’t need to have high value items to want to feel protected from an intruder. It isn’t the loss of items but the invasion.
We have an alarm, security lights having been burgled once 25 years ago. Police said then that having a visible alarm deterred would be thieves.

Firstly, we live across the boulevard from one of the main Police Stations and a few metres from a major Hotel.

So burglaries are nearly unheard of in our part of The Madrid Capital.

None the less we have excellent Security Insurance Coverage against criminal burglaries plus interior security cameras at the exterior of the building and inside our flat. Also these cameras are hooked up to the Police Station as the Hotel is as well .. And all the buildings on this boulevard ..

None the less we are very cautious and have security measures on our roof top terrace as well with security cameras and security gating ..

We are lucky as I am sure it is very frightening to experience.

Our last house was a big Victorian semi, in a prominent position overlooking a large traffic light controlled junction. The house could be seen clearly by people stopped at the lights. At first floor level there were three evenly spaced large sash windows

In broad daylight on a summers evening, someone shinned up a drainpipe at the front of the house then managed to edge their way across the front of the house, their feet on a narrow decorative row of bricks, that stuck out of the wall a few inches.

When they reached the centre window, where the top sash window was, accidentally about an inch or so open, he pushed the bottom sash up and climbed in.

When the police arrived and we showed them the open window and trainer foot print on the radiator below it, they refused to believe that anyone would have risked getting in that way, where they could be seen by so many people, and then searched the rest of the house looking for the alternative route the burglar had used, without effect, every other window and door was closed and locked.

So kittylester, do not believe the police. If a burglar thinks your house would be worth a visit he will, whether the lay out is unusual or not.

By the way, our burglar was really wasting his time. All he found upstairs worth taking was the spare door key and when he went downstairs he set the burglar alarm off, leaving him only time to grab the video player and tv remote control before running for the front door, unlocking it, leaving the key in the lock and scarpering

Our house is very unusual and a local pc says that will put people off burgling as they can't assume anything about the layout.

We have modernish houses opposite which get burgled quite often which would seem to bear that out.

I am amazed to read on here how very nosy some people's taxi drivers are! I'd be very wary of those sort of questions.

I always wave and shout goodbye when being collected by taxi, even though I live alone.

Most burglars are looking for easy pickings and sadly, the poorer an area is the higher the chance of a break-in.

Similarly, if you really do have things worth stealing then burglars know how to get round all kinds of security systems.

I've always found that having plantation blinds on my windows gives me a sense of security.. I used to have a four storey house with a basement and despite other burgleries in the area I was never broken into.. now I have blinds and and close neighbours

We had a house with shutters and we found two steel doors in an outhouse The owners before the people whom we bought the house off told us the previous owners used it as a holiday home but they had not had any trouble it’s not an area where there was generally any trouble
This turned out to be true according to neighbours the guy who installed them was a teacher at a residential school who used to take groups of boys on holiday there The break ins were vandalism
Muck collectors never used them but did not remove them as it would have cost quite a bit to make good the windows
My point is shutter installation can be quite damaging to a property if you come to sell as nd a purchaser does not like them