Improve home security? Mainly outdoors.

413x

413x

413x

Caporegime
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Llaneirwg
Anyone got any tips to improve home security?

Looks like a petty crime wave is in my area. Nothing in terms of break ins to houses but recently people have been climbing walls and entering gardens. Looking in cars and stealing anything worth while.

I've put up cameras but police don't seem to care about this anyway.

I'm looking at things like spikes on walls. Paint etc. Stuff to deter chancers.

There's even talk of getting a community vigilante group. Apparently this actually happened here in the past and it worked. Unbelievable.

I've never ever lived anywhere with issues like this before. I grew up where you don't need keys!

And yes. I will be moving in next few years.
 
Lock your ground floor windows if you can. Make sure nothing valuable is kept in the car. Get an alarm and make sure it's visible from the outside of the house - alarm box or stickers on windows.

It's basic stuff but it works.
 
I always thought spikes on walls was illegal - just in case you injure a prospective burglar. Which kinda takes the **** considering industrial sites tend to have barbed wire around perimeters.

I would say the usual deterrence's that get mentioned:
- Adequate lighting covering all areas - typically motion activated
- Ensure any rear gates/side gates have good locks - i put a bolt on the bottom of mine that goes into the slab so that you couldn't just kick the bottom of the fence (most lock at the top)
- Ensure any outbuildings like sheds/garages are locked / have no valuables in them / could even look at alarming them
- Make sure any downstairs windows lock securely, and try not to leave anything around (loose bricks/stones) that could be used to smash a window

As reluctant as it sounds, if someone wants to gain access to your property, they will do. Most thieves are opportunists and will look for the easiest target, so you need to make your house look more secure than your neighbours.
 
Semple said:
As reluctant as it sounds, if someone wants to gain access to your property, they will do. Most thieves are opportunists and will look for the easiest target, so you need to make your house look more secure than your neighbours.
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Exactly this. Just a few basics, to make your house look like more effort than others should be enough.
 
We have a shared access path down the side and across the rear of our house.

It's gravelled and we can hear if anyone comes down it no matter how quiet they tread - usually only our neighbours or postman - but good to know esp late at night can have a quick nose out the window to see (neighbours are elderly not not likely them if late at night)

Also fitted a Yale lock to our shared access garden gate and gave the neighbours a key each - they seemed to accept this OK - the last owners had things nicked from the garden via this open gate - even the postman said to me "urgh this gate always used to be open" annoyed he had to ring the front door instead of just leaving things out back.

Can always set some wifi plugs to turn on/off lamps if you are away from the house for a night or two.
 
Be insured, basically.

Any theft that does happen will either be opportunistic (i.e. keep things locked/out of site) or violent. If it is the latter, best not to put up a fight and just let it go.

Anything super valuable keep out of the typical places, so that if you are ever held at knife point or whatever, you can give them enough to be happy but not your sentimental stuff. My Dad's watch for example is hidden at the back of a drawer versus in the "safe" with the passports and travel money.

CCTV is a reasonable deterrent but there is enough footage of folks caught on CCTV that it seems almost irrelevant.
 
Yeah as I thought really.

Insurance for serious crime. Standard prevention/common sense for opportunistic crime.

Going to secure my bike in bike shed better probably the main action I need to take and put a security camera up on drive. But really I'm less sure how effective these are. There's a lot of peoples footage floating around now and still little interest from police.

Anyone know if footage is actually of any use? Would police EVER use it? Let's say you get a clear face shot. Of someone actually stealing breaking into you car.
 
radderfire said:
What sort of house do you have? Is it overlooked?
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It's a detached on the edge of a big estate (one of those that's grown over time).

There are some nice streets. Mine for example. But only 4 streets away it starts to get ghetto. And this overspill. Also 'social housing' has recently gone up. Maybe coincidence. But the correlation is there.

The house itself has an 7-8ft brick wall/metal fence around the back gatden. But the back and sides are overlooked. But again. Nice Street.

Main way into mine would be over the front wall. Which is camera covered.
 
There's a street view of garage, wall and house

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That garage does look a bit vulnerable being so far away from the house.

The issue with consumer level CCTV (nest, ring etc) is that it’s night time quality is terrible and most of these opportunistic crimes happen at night. There is very little value in having a blurry black and white image of someone stealing your stuff.

There are much better full colour night vision options from proper cctv companies.
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
That garage does look a bit vulnerable being so far away from the house.

The issue with consumer level CCTV (nest, ring etc) is that it’s night time quality is terrible and most of these opportunistic crimes happen at night. There is very little value in having a blurry black and white image of someone stealing your stuff.

There are much better full colour night vision options from proper cctv companies.
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It's certainly an unusual place for a garage. Every other house on street has no garage or its connected to the house. The garage doesn't have much of value in apart from my kayak. Which isn't really prime stealing.to be honest they probably wouldn't know it was expenor even a kayak.

It does have mains power so there are options

Yeah my nest footage is OK at night but you have to be damn close to render details.

Putting a motion alarm on shed door might be best option. At least I'd get woken up by time they take the angle grinder to the bike lock
 
As far as spiky on top of walls in concerned I believe the law is that in theory a burglar could sue you for personal injury. Only like to happen if they get injured and caught of course.
Trellis is actually really good on top of walls, it adds enough height that it makes it very difficult to get over without being very obvious (ie breaking the trellis)

Spiky bushes (thorny) are very good in front of walls if you can get them thick enough, but they are a hazard to you as well depending how close you need to go to them.

I would deffo go heavy on additional lighting there. The wall is far enough back from the pavement that you should be able to use good detection. Garage alarm etc.
 
dLockers said:
My Dad's watch for example is hidden at the back of a drawer versus in the "safe" with the passports and travel money.
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Will be targeting your house tonight ;).

I'm curious, for sentimental stuff (i'm assuming it never gets worn) why not keep it up in the loft well out of reach. It's unlikely anyone who's going to burgle the property is going to go rummaging around in the loft.
 
Semple said:
That's a nice house, i'm surprised you're looking to move in the short term. Is the area a bit iffy?
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Location, location, location comes to mind :D

Semple said:
Will be targeting your house tonight ;).

I'm curious, for sentimental stuff (i'm assuming it never gets worn) why not keep it up in the loft well out of reach. It's unlikely anyone who's going to burgle the property is going to go rummaging around in the loft.
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Haha I was going to get mega specific as a 'lol'. I would do but I like to wear it on occasion. It'll never get found unless the house is really turned upside down, but I hope there is enough low hanging fruit in car keys, less sentimental gear that is fully insured, that means they'd be more than happy to leave the stuff I really care about.
 
Semple said:
That's a nice house, i'm surprised you're looking to move in the short term. Is the area a bit iffy?
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Nice House, lovely street. Best neighbours I've ever had. But go 1/4 mile and you get shopping trolleys in gardens etc. That overspills into our area.

In the past I've lived in **** homes but nice areas.

It was difficult to get a nice size garden for hens for a price I could afford for my First House
 
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Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
As far as spiky on top of walls in concerned I believe the law is that in theory a burglar could sue you for personal injury. Only like to happen if they get injured and caught of course.
Trellis is actually really good on top of walls, it adds enough height that it makes it very difficult to get over without being very obvious (ie breaking the trellis)

Spiky bushes (thorny) are very good in front of walls if you can get them thick enough, but they are a hazard to you as well depending how close you need to go to them.

I would deffo go heavy on additional lighting there. The wall is far enough back from the pavement that you should be able to use good detection. Garage alarm etc.
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Think I'll take a few of these. I have a Google system and seen that they have a floodlight cam. Looks like it will easily cover the garage to house space.
 
does your garage door bolt into the concrete floor below?
when I was a youth back in the 90s I knew people who robbed garages they would literally force the door up with brute force often totally bending the door out of place.
bolts going into the floor were the sure fire method to stop it happening

it's probably teenagers robbing gardens, sheds and garages as they get older they start stealing motorbikes, then cars then robbing houses.

that's the way my friends went anyway

no one cares about lights going off in your garden if they are triggered merely from someone walking past anyway, they will go off so often none of your neighbours will look what's going on.

Semple said:
I always thought spikes on walls was illegal - just in case you injure a prospective burglar. Which kinda takes the **** considering industrial sites tend to have barbed wire around perimeters.
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so did I but I still see buildings around here with glass along the tops of the walls.
 
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