A burglary takes place every 40 seconds in the UK, so it pays to protect your home as best you can.
That is especially so as Christmas approaches when our homes are filled with expensive presents scattered handily around the place for uninvited visitors to help themselves to.
Here Adrian Flux Insurance Services offers 10 easy and affordable ways to help protect your home from burglary this Christmas:
- Don’t advertise the flash new flat-screen TV, gaming system, laptops or other expensive electronics by leaving the boxes outside for recycling. If you do, you will be signposting the booty your home could offer up in the event of a burglary.
- Bushes, shrubs and trees can gift a burglar the camouflage they need for a break-in. Make sure you trim back any overgrown vegetation so that doors, windows and porches are clearly visible to neighbours and passers-by.
- Some burglars “window shop” before deciding which home to burgle. Make sure all valuables are out of sight and use drapes or blinds so your belongings aren’t easily seen.
- If you have a garage, use it. If someone is keeping an eye on your house, they can easily get to grips with your daily schedule if your car is always parked on the drive or outside the house at the same time. If you use your garage, burglars won’t be able to determine a pattern in your routine and won’t be able to assume they’ll know when no one is at home.
- According to experts – the burglars themselves – a gravel driveway is more off-putting than security lights. It’s difficult to make a silent entrance to a property if you have to walk along a gravel drive and if there’s one thing burglars hate above anything else, is noise while they’re working.
- If you’re going away, make sure you arrange with a neighbour to check your property, remove any post, open and close curtains and switch on lights. Cancel newspapers and consider fitting timers on indoor lights, radios and televisions. Burglars avoid homes where they can see obvious activity.
- Give yourself peace of mind by making sure you have the right level of insurance cover, should the worst happen and you arrive home to discover you have been a burglary victim. Adrian Flux is one of the leading specialist home insurance brokers in the UK and can offer you some of the best prices on the market.
- Consider using nature’s own defence mechanisms against burglary by planting a prickly hedge or plants that will sting or scratch intruders. Consider holly, sea buckthorn, prickly ash or bramble bushes.
- A seasoned burglar knows that you might have hidden a key in the garden in the eventuality that you find yourself locked out. Spare keys hidden under doormats, plant pots or inside fake rocks can be found in seconds – so keep your emergency keys with a neighbour or friend.
- Buy a dog, or pretend you have one – a dog won’t stop every domestic burglary, but it definitely makes it look far less approachable. If you don’t own a dog, consider putting up a “Beware of the dog” sign regardless. Talking of dogs, 10 of the best …
A final tip: lock your windows and doors every time you leave home. It’s free, it’s simple and it’s the number one burglary deterrent.
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