5 Ways to Tell if Your Home is an Easy Target for Burglars
It’s everybody’s worst nightmare: coming home and opening the door to a house that’s been ransacked. Suddenly, all your treasured belongings have been stolen, and even those sentimental family photographs on your wall were left in shambles.
Unfortunately, this situation is more common than you think. In fact, over 1 million home burglaries occur in the country every year. Whether it’s happened to you or not, you shouldn’t wait to become part of the statistic. It’s important to be proactive in protecting your home from theft, so you can enjoy peace of mind and ensure your hard-earned things stay in your possession.
Curious to know if your home may be an easy target for burglars? Keep reading to find out.
Your porch and yard aren’t well-maintained.
Take a quick look at your porch and front yard. Do you see stacks of old brochures from the mail? Piles of envelopes and unopened parcels? Or maybe even tall shrubs and weeds that look way overdue for a good mowing. To burglars, it could look like you haven’t been home for a while, and encourage them to break in unnoticed. It may seem like a small thing, but the smallest details could make a big difference.
2. You’re active on social media.
There’s nothing wrong with home tours, travel photos, and TikTok videos of yourself dancing around your house. However, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, approximately 65% of home invasion victims know their offender. You don’t want to unknowingly invite a burglar (who could be one of your followers) into your empty apartment while you’re away on vacation. Plus, always remember to turn off your location-sharing when posting, as these can reveal when you’re not home.
3. You keep your valuables in plain sight.
Burglary is high-risk, high-reward — meaning, they’re most likely to target homes that are likely to have expensive valuables. Your TV shouldn’t be seen from the street, nor should any other expensive-looking items like paintings or even your laptop. It goes without saying that you should keep smaller valuables in secure places too. Burglars typically check main bedrooms first for money and jewelry, so try to find an alternative place for you to store them — such as a safe or locked cabinet in another room, or the bank. Remember that burglars want to be in and out of homes ASAP, so taking these extra steps may create additional barriers to prevent them from stealing more.
4. Your doors and windows are always unlocked.
It sounds like the most basic of rules, but you’d be surprised how so many families and individuals casually leave their entry points open or unlocked. Shockingly, a survey among incarcerated burglars revealed that most of them simply entered through an unlocked window or door. Even if it was on the second story. After all, the last thing an intruder wants is to make a scene, or call attention to themselves by breaking a window or door. As such, any home that’s unlocked is definitely their go-to target. You can even use our Motion + Entry Sensors to make sure and check in to see if you locked all of the entry points. You’ll be able to use the Kangaroo app to check to make sure they are closed and locked.
5. You don’t have a reliable home security system (or any at all).
At the end of the day, the best way to keep burglars and other intruders away is to have a home security system you can rely on. Alarms, security cameras, and even yard signs are excellent deterrents that make a break-in significantly harder for burglars.
Here at Kangaroo, we’ve got security solutions for every lifestyle and budget. Whether you’re a family of five or living in a solo apartment, our products are designed to protect your home and loved ones. You can be sound asleep upstairs or lounging on a beach in Cancún, and still enjoy peace of mind knowing your home is safeguarded against threats. What’s more, we make sure our systems are easy to operate and set up — no complicated manuals that read like an alien language, or hardwiring that takes hours to install.
Check out some of our most popular home security packages here.
