Break in

Just yesterday my house was broken into.  From talking with my neighbors, the break in occurred sometime between 9am and 12 noon.  Now fortunately nothing was taken as we have decent security; an alarm and many deadlocks on the doors.  What happened was the guy went round the side and broke into my window by prying it open with a crowbar.  The entire window frame has come apart, but the glass was still intact, probably as to not make too much noise.  The window leads into my flat and the guy is extremely quick and efficient, not disturbing much on my desk.  The alarm would have went off and he was able to locate both the siren and then control panel ripping both off.  Unfortunately for him the alarm is hooked up upstairs and so it still went off.  Unable to turn off the alarm, or open the door to get back out, he climbed out the window without taking anything and very little (aside from the alarm) seems touched.

I had a few coins lying around, and my laptop which would have been easy to take, but not worth much (5 year old laptops wouldn't sell for much) and my computer and monitor would have been fairly large and difficult to rush off with (since he couldn't get out the door).  He must have saw my big cheap CRT TV and thought that there was nothing here valuable enough to steal (which is true).  The most valuable (in terms of cost) would have been my computer and monitor costing me some $1500 but probably wouldn't sell for nearly that.  The guy was probably hoping to get into the main house upstairs which was locked, and hoping to find some gold and jewelry.

Some advice and things:

• Get Deadlocks for your doors - ones that NEED a key to open from both inside and out
• Have at least 2 locks on your main door
• Have locks on all windows - or at least the ones you can get to
• Lock your doors and windows when you go out - and check them!
• Install an Alarm - and set it when you go out!
• Install security cameras - webcams or even fake security cameras
• Timers which turn on your radio/TV/lights and irregular intervals - especially for holidays
• Store all jewelery in Safety deposit boxes
• Record all serial numbers of electronics and gadgets -if for nothing else; Insurance
• Finally, talk to your neighbours, let them know what time the break in happened and get your whole neighbourhood aware
• Burglars often burgle during the day, sometimes in the evening when the lights are out
• Burglars like places where people can't easily see what they are doing
• If you do get stuff stolen, serial numbers can help track them down, or do some research yourself to look for the stuff