Looking at a Home from a Burglar's Eyes

Sept. 24, 2004
They'll target a house they can get into and out of quickly, quietly and without being seen. And how do they choose that house?

They'll target a house they can get into and out of quickly, quietly and without being seen. And how do they choose that house?

From the outside.

That's why your home's outward appearance can be your first line of defense against burglars.

"What criminals see... is, 'I can access this property because I perceive it to be vulnerable,' " said Terri Kelly, director of community outreach and support for the National Crime Prevention Council.

Make your home appear risky for intruders, and you greatly increase the chances they will pass it by, she said.

Most exterior fixes are highly cost-effective, said Marc Rospert, executive director of the Ohio Crime Prevention Association. Alarm systems are fine, he said, but "all these kinds of things can be done before you think about putting in an alarm."

Landscaping is one of the first elements burglars consider when they are casing a house, said Detective James Conley, a community-relations and crime-prevention specialist with the police department in Akron, Ohio. Specifically, "they're going to look to see if there's a place to hide," he said.

Tall shrubs or dense trees that grow in front of windows or block the view of entry points provide the ideal cover for a thief to work, Conley said. He and other security experts recommend trimming shrubs so they do not reach higher than windowsills, and keeping tall plants away from entrances.

If you have a tree close to your house, he said, keep the bottom branches trimmed about three feet off the ground, so the legs of a person standing behind it can be seen.

If you are planning some new landscaping, consider positioning thorny or prickly plants directly under windows, Conley suggested. They make breaking into your house that much more uncomfortable - and that much less appealing.

Before you select trees or shrubs, though, Kelly recommends taking their growth patterns into consideration. Those plants will not stay small forever, she said, so think about whether they will eventually block the illumination of a lighting fixture or obscure the view.

It is important to keep your yard well-maintained, the experts say - grass mowed, shrubs trimmed, snow shoveled, toys and trash picked up. Not only does that indicate that someone's around to do the work, Rospert said, it also signals to intruders that you care about your property, enough so that you have probably taken steps to protect it.

Lighting is a crucial contributor to a house's exterior security, the experts say. Burglars do not want to be seen, so they will look for darkened doorways and shadowy backyards that will obscure their work. By removing the cover of darkness, you have taken away an incentive for them to choose your house.

Good lighting does not have to involve an investment in spotlights or motion sensors, Rospert said. "Before you do that, change the bulb on your porch light," he said.

Kelly recommended illuminating all the major entrances to a home, such as the front door, the back porch, and the garage door.

Fixtures are typically in those spots, so use them.

Even interior lamps light the outside to some extent, Rospert said. Discouraging a burglar from breaking in through your back window might be as simple as keeping a light on in that room.

If you do not want the bother of remembering to turn a light on in the evening and off in the morning, you can use a timer or install a fixture with a light sensor. Or just buy an inexpensive light-sensing socket that screws into a standard socket.

Motion-detecting sockets are also available that turn standard fixtures into motion-sensing lights, which come on when someone approaches and turn off a set amount of time after the movement stops.

Motion detectors, however, are a matter of some debate among security experts.

In the right setting, they can be a useful deterrent and alert a homeowner to an intruder's presence, Rospert said. But in a situation like his home in the country, where deer are continually approaching the house, or in a place where people or large dogs come and go frequently, a motion-sensor light will go on and off so often that "people might not pay much attention," he said. Or worse, they might get so annoyed that they turn it off.

Before you buy a motion-sensing light, do your homework, Conley said. Buy a good-quality light that will be triggered only by a significant presence, not by every raccoon or neighborhood cat.

Privacy fences are another feature that makes the safety experts wary. Solid stockade fences and dense hedges may shield you from the neighbors' prying eyes, but they will also shield burglars from view, the experts say.

Consider whether a well-placed tree or small cluster of shrubs might do the job just as effectively, without blocking the view entirely. The sense of privacy that fences and hedges provide might be nice, "but I hope you have a guard dog," Conley said.

He was only partly joking. An alert dog is a great deterrent, he said, but so is the suggestion of one.

If you do not have a dog, he said, put a dog dish outside the door and maybe a chain in the yard. A burglar who sees those clues is not going to take the time to investigate whether a dog really lives there. He is going to leave.

Before you go to that length, though, make sure you are not making what the experts say is a common exterior security mistake: leaving the garage door open.

"I can't tell you how many times people walk up the driveway and take things out of the garage," Rospert said.

It is also standard operating procedure among burglars to enter an unlocked garage and close the door, giving them complete privacy so they can take their time breaking into the house. That is why it is important to have a good lock on the service door between the house and the garage, and to use it, Rospert said.

Be careful not to give burglars other easy ways in, he said. Avoid storing extension ladders outside, and do not keep tall stacks of wood or other objects next to the house. Burglars might climb them to get in an upper window.

Some of the best exterior security options are the ones that exist beyond the boundaries of your property. They are your neighbors.

"We all had that nosy neighbor growing up," Rospert said. "But I'll tell you what: She's a police officer's best friend, and she's also a neighborhood's best friend." She knows the people in the neighborhood, she knows their routines, and she knows when something is amiss, he said.

Even neighbors with less curiosity are likely to keep an eye out for the people they know and care about. So introduce yourselves to your neighbors, he suggested, and then make an effort to get to know them beyond the occasional wave as you are pulling out the driveway.

Ask for their phone numbers. Offer to pick up their mail and newspapers when they are away, and ask them to do the same for you.

Consider that just a part of the whole security puzzle, Kelly said.

"No one strategy, no one piece of hardware, is going to keep people out of your house," she said.

But a little thoughtfulness and a series of good choices just might do the trick.