Make sure your property is secure when you go on holiday

Published 06th Aug 2007

Finally, it's here - the annual two-week holiday. But most of us feel a slight twinge of anxiety as we close the front door behind us. After all, everyone knows that you're most likely to get burgled in the dogdays of August.

Or that, at least, is the popular view. And certainly it is a major worry for those heading off for a break in the sun. So now is a good time to take proper precautions.

In fact, according to Home Office research, domestic burglary doesn't rise dramatically in the summer. It's the winter months when we're most vulnerable, with the peak in January as people return to empty houses after the festive period. Perhaps burglars, like law-abiding citizens, are feeling the pinch after all that over-indulgence at Christmas.

But any break-in is one too many. About 2.5 per cent of householders, according to the British Crime Survey, were the victims of burglary in England and Wales during 2006 to 2007. Summer may not mean a burgling bonanza, but an unoccupied property is still an obvious target.

10-POINT PLAN
1 Check out the UK police website www.securedbydesign.com, which has a wealth of practical advice about home security. It's worth taking time to work out what you really need before you turn your home into a fortress.

2 Sophisticated systems are worth thinking about if you have an expensive property. Businessman John Ellison, on holiday in Marbella last September, had installed a £20,000 security system and 16 CCTV cameras to protect his £2.5 million home in Lancaster. When he received a mobile alert telling him that his burglar alarm had gone off, he plugged in his laptop, saw masked raiders smashing his patio doors, phoned the police in the UK - then watched as officers arrived and caught the intruders red-handed.

3 But don't dismiss much simpler solutions, either. The British Crime Survey suggests that households with deadlocks on doors and locked windows are 10 times less likely to be the victims of burglary than those with no simple security measures at all.

4 Home Office research shows that burglary of unsecured premises is more common in the summer, whereas forced entry by smashing a window or door is 50 per cent more likely in the months leading up to Christmas. If locks deter the August burglar, your most important pre-holiday job might be to visit your local locksmith, or even, if you're not frightened by small fiddly bits of metal, your local DIY store.

5 Don't forget the human touch. As Detective Inspector Paul Anstee, Crime Prevention Officer at Scotland Yard, says: "Taking straightforward crime prevention measures when you go away is, of course, sensible, and technology has its place. However, a neighbour to keep an eye on everything is the ideal scenario.'' A friend, neighbour or paid housesitter can draw curtains at night, move the mountain of pizza flyers from the front door and make sure your cancelled papers don't miraculously appear in the letterbox.

6 Perhaps even more importantly, given this year's terrifying floods, a neighbour can alert you to unforeseen disasters. Recent research by Halifax Home Insurance suggests that every year more than one million British holidaymakers return home to chaos - not just burglaries, but burst pipes, broken boilers, gas leaks and fire and flood damage. It's a wonder any of us go away at all.

7 Even your kindly neighbour can't be watching your property 24 hours a day. So what can you do to deter the light-fingered opportunist? Interviews with convicted burglars carried out by criminologist Professor Martin Gill on behalf of Halifax Home Insurance suggest that if a thief is really determined to break into a property, nothing will stop him. Alarms can be dismantled, patio doors removed and sash windows forced. Even security lighting can make the job easier, providing a handy light to work by. Michael Fraser, star of BBC's To Catch A Thief and Beat The Burglar, and author of How Safe is Your Home? (Spring Hill, £12.99), is less pessimistic. He reckons that if your house looks as if you take security seriously, a thief will probably leave you alone. Take a long, cool look at the outside of your house from the point of view of the potential intruder. Alarm boxes, for example, should look clean and serviced, and gates should be firmly closed. Watch out for anything that could make the burglar's job easy - hedges that can be hidden behind, wheelie bins that can be used as climbing frames or catflaps positioned so that fingers can reach in and turn the key in the lock. Don't conceal your security measures. You're not trying to catch the thief - you just want him to go elsewhere.

8 Stuart Lister, from the University of Leeds, points out that most burglars are very parochial: "They tend not to commit crimes more than a mile from where they live." So be careful how and where you flag up news of your imminent departure. Don't, for example, cancel the milk by leaving a note outside in a milk bottle - you don't want the information getting into the wrong hands. If you can't resist boasting about your two weeks in Florida, make sure you're not doing so in a crowded pub or restaurant. Burglars, like walls, have ears.

9 Don't forget to secure the garage and the shed. The tools themselves may not be worth stealing, but even a rusty old screwdriver can be used to lever open a downstairs window.

10 If you're not sure about the weak points of your home security, get advice (details of your local police security expert are available on www.securedbydesign.com. Alternatively, just before you go on holiday, look hard at your property and think like a thief.

KEEPING THE BADDIES AT BAY
Do
• Photograph every room in the house, and any valuable items of jewellery. If anything is missing on your return, you have proof for the insurers
• Visibly and permanently mark valuable items with your postcode, or use a commercial marking product. Keep a record of the make, model and serial number. To safeguard large valuable items, check out www.immobilise.com.
• Leave your emergency contact details with the neighbour who's keeping an eye on your property
• Consider leaving valuable documents with good friends or family - or put them in a safe
• Make sure you've got up-to-date insurance
• Remember all the obvious stuff - cancel the milk and papers, and put lights on a timer 10-point plan

Don't
• Close your curtains. As Michael Fraser says: "People might as well stick a sign on saying they've gone on holiday and the house is empty.''
• Hide jewellery in "clever" places. Burglars know all about the toilet cistern, the hems of curtains and inside the packet of bran flakes.
• Put your home address on your luggage - you don't want to advertise the fact that your home will be empty for two weeks.
• Leave bills, bank statements and diaries lying around. If a burglar does get in, he's got everything he needs to carry out identity theft, too.
• Forget to lock your windows, doors, garage and garden shed.
By Marianne Kavanagh

Source: ' Telegraph '

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