House alarms – utterly without point?

What about things such as lamps and radios on timers or systems like Hive as a deterrent, to add to the compilation of products?

Alarm lets you know someone has broken in. Upgraded locks stop them getting in in the first place. Euro cylinder locks are terrifyingly easy to break. Look up lock snap euro cylinder on youtube. You can get anti snap anti bump locks as above for very little money.
I have the posh locks, an alarm, an angry dog and the best measure of all, awesome neighbours.

I’d put an alarm somewhere on the list but not essential. I moved into my house 25 yrs ago and I’ve never switched the alarm on. I decided the hassle factor outweighed the risk. So far I’m right.

In descending order I’d put the risk factors/safety factors as roughly

Live in a low risk area.

Live in a street with neighbours not an isolated house

Have a garden that isn’t easy to get in or out of – neds like easy escape routes – but at the same time is overlooked by neighbours

Don’t live in a dormitory area. A place where not everyone is away working during the day is good. Whether it’s stay at home mums or retirees.

Well lit garden

Good locks

Dog (that barks – mine creeps quietly into the kitchen until in knows who it is 🙂 )

Alarm

So in summary – location, location, location. The suburb I live in adjoins the north side of Glasgow. While we have had the odd local car thief and shed/garage thief over the years as far as I can remember every single person caught breaking into houses was from Glasgow. The other crime to watch for which we get is fishing through letterboxes for car keys.

My street 3 miles from Glasgow has a house break in rate of zero as far as I’m aware compared to the streets which are walking distance from Glasgow which have moderate to high house break in rates. Short off street walking routes make escape easy, especially the railway. Having to travel to and from target areas in a car is more risky especially at night when traffic is low enough the risk of being stopped is higher.

High risk area – alarm is part of the package. Low risk area I wouldn’t bother or just put a dummy box up.

Local Police told us that local scrotes always go for the easiest option i.e. The house with no alarm.

May as well put a dummy box up…

The burglar who broke into a neighbours used a glass cutter on a side window and crawled through the hole. Cleaned them out. They did exactly the same thing a month later but by that time the neighbour had installed CCTV and he looked right at the camera. He’s inside now.

Well I popped round last night to check all was okay – turned out she was out for the night and he was meant to be staying in but decided at the last minute to nip out for a beer, leaving the fire roaring and switching the alarm on – the thermals somehow triggered the alarm.

After I went back home the alarm was still sounding for about 10 minutes (at which point I assumed it had gone silent as they do at a set time after triggering) but apparently another neighbour (a keyholder) had gone round to reset it and check all was okay. I can only assume they decided to wait for any potential burglar to have cleared off so they didn’t have to confront them LOL!

web enabled motion activated discrete cctv with local + ‘cloud’ based recording. front & rear of the house ideally doorbell location + outbuildings.

Decent PIR’s have a weight range iirc, so if a dog weighs 50lb and wanders around, alarm doesn’t go off. Honeywell Galaxy alarms, it’s what banks / post offices use. A big FO siren too, not some poxy alarm box on the side of the house.

The alarm worked well for my Mum a few weeks ago – aborted burglary. She does live in a small village where most people know each other and actually do something if they hear an alarm going off. There isn’t much excitement otherwise!

I’ve also known this to happen, also in a small village.

But, living in Sharrow in Sheffield the community spirit extended no further than someone leaning out of their bedroom window and shouting “turn that **** alarm off you ****” which I would guess is in part a reflection on frequency

Check out this website: http://www.manything.com

Might be of some use.

Live in a street with neighbours not an isolated house

Now that’s an interesting one, and I’m not arguing at all – I always assumed the main batch of this sort of crime was built up areas for rich pickings.

I have lived and have friends who lived in quite nice pads in the country – it does seem to be rarer.

Have a garden that isn’t easy to get in or out of – neds like easy escape routes – but at the same time is overlooked by neighbours

When my bikes were taken from my garage, the scrotes had to climb over next door’s gate, then over my fence, to get to my garage back door (front door was disabled for security!). I always assumed no-one would be as bold to take such a protracted route, but I guess I had been clocked taking the bikes in and out and they knew what they were after.

Now that’s an interesting one, and I’m not arguing at all – I always assumed the main batch of this sort of crime was built up areas for rich pickings.

I have lived and have friends who lived in quite nice pads in the country – it does seem to be rarer.

Yeah, my understanding is that proximity to deprived areas is key. No crackhead is going to make a 25 mile trip to the countryside to score an iPad or two. Opposite maybe true for organised thieves targeting car keys though.

Yeah, my understanding is that proximity to deprived areas is key. No crackhead is going to make a 25 mile trip to the countryside to score an iPad or two. Opposite maybe true for organised thieves targeting car keys though.

I live in Harrogate and there has been a spate of burglaries last week – they have just arrested two people from Keighley (25.9m according to Google) but they were doing ‘2-in-1’ burglaries where they took the iPads etc *AND* the cars.

(This is why I am feeling jumpy at the moment)

Rural crime tends to be thieves targetting farm machinery like quad bikes rather than domestic properties. Easier pickings for things like bikes and consumer electronics in urban areas plus “unknown” vehicles or individuals tend to be noticed more. Not that there’s no instances of course.

Not sure if it’s been linked to in the thread already but there’s a site you can check for crime in your area/postcode https://crime-statistics.co.uk/postcode

CCTV in multiple places is your friend. It might not be able to stop them, not a lot will, but at least there will be some evidence to help catch the scum.