4
Jul
2017
By Calvin at 13:34 GMT, 8 years ago
I see that South Yorkshire Police and Cumbria Constabulary are two of several police services warning their local residents not to leave windows and doors open as the weather warms up again.
Most police forces see burglary rates rise during warm spells, particularly the sneak in type where the thief takes advantage of a door or window left open. As long as you’re in the house you should still be covered by your insurance, but if you go out and forget to close that open window then you’re likely to run into trouble if you do get a visit and have to make a claim.
I think you would agree that it’s sometimes difficult for us not to open windows for some fresh air and so how do we reach some reasonable and practical compromise?
Before we think about the checks we might make here are three very common scenarios where the thief takes advantage of an open door or window. And remember, you don’t have to be out for an open window or an unlocked door to be used by a thief.
The forgotten front window
It’s a very hot day and you’ve opened the ground floor lounge window at the front of the house for some fresh air whilst watching the one-o’clock news. At half past one you pop upstairs to get something and then the phone extension in the bedroom starts to ring. You answer it and it’s your friend who’s just come back from holiday and wants to tell you all about it. You chat away for the next thirty minutes. After the phone call you can’t remember what it was you went upstairs for so you go back down and realise that an ornament on the window sill has fallen onto the settee. You go to pick it up and then notice that the car keys have gone from the table where they are always kept. You look out the front and realise that the car has gone.
The forgotten back door
You’ve just arrived home from the supermarket and all the bags are on the kitchen floor waiting to be unpacked. After ten minutes unpacking you go out through the back door to take some rubbish to the wheelie bin. You realise you’ve got enough time to have a quick shower before going out again to meet your friend for lunch. As you’re drying yourself off you hear what sounds like the back door closing. Out of curiosity, but assuming that it’s the wind, you quickly don a dressing gown and go downstairs. As you walk into the kitchen you wonder where your handbag has gone and after no more than 30 seconds you realise that someone has walked through the unlocked side gate and the back door and stolen it.
The forgotten second man
After a bit of weeding in the back garden you’re in the middle of preparing lunch for one when the door bell rings. You answer the door and you’re greeted by a friendly chap who is offering to cut the grass on your front lawn. He gives you a price and as you look at the long grass you think to yourself ‘that’s not a bad price and it’ll save me much needed time as I’m meant to be meeting friends at the cinema later this afternoon.’ You continue to chat to the odd-job man who seems honest and harmless enough and after some five minutes exchanging banter he tells you that he’ll be around a little later with the mower as he’s just finishing a job up the road. You go back inside the house to finish preparing the lunch and find the back door open. You close it and settle down to eat your food. As you get ready to go to meet your friends you can’t find your wallet and then you realise what has happened. A second person has walked in through the back door whilst you were chatting out the front with the supposed gardener - who never did return to cut your grass.
All these scenarios (and I could have come up with several similar ones) require a door or window to be open for the crime to take place and the other thing you should know is that these methods to commit crime are incredibly common, especially during hot weather. I think you can also see that they are all preventable crimes and are then crimes that should never take place.
Some of you, I know, will think that it’s poor show if you can’t leave a back door open when you’re in the house, but the truth is that if you live in a built-up area where crime is not an uncommon occurrence then I would ask you to think again.
So what can you do?
- Routine is the answer. Simply get into the habit of turning the key in the back door lock when you’re not going to use it for a while; it’s just a turn of the key
- Always keep that back or side gate locked and make sure it’s difficult to climb over
- If you need to open windows for some fresh air (and who doesn’t) then think about fitting the ones you open regularly with restrictors, so they can’t easily be fully opened from the outside. A fanlight window can be fitted with a grille, which is especially useful if you like to sleep with a window open at night
- Make sure you use my KOPCAR routine at night and when you go out to make certain that everything has been locked up
- Don’t have anything to do with cold callers at the door (or on the phone). If you need a gardener then speak to the neighbours and get recommendations. There are lots of honest men and women out there who would love to cut your grass for a few quid
- There are, of course, lots of other security measures you can take that will reduce the risk and so you might want to spend some time investigating the huge number of pages on this website that will help you
