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[drizzellla]

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@eddyandme wrote:

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@Citrine1 wrote:

Having a dog in the house has always made me feel pretty secure.  

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You are so right!  Years ago, I had just adopted my beautiful English Lab.  She had lived here for about a month and when she first came here used to make the rounds at nite going from room to room chasing the wildlife away:  she wouldn't allow them within a certain perimeter around the house.  

One nite between 3-4 a.m. she furiously jumped out of bed barking/growling bigtime at the backdoor.  Half out of it, I got up and saw her in attack mode at the kitchen door.  My loving girl had suddenly become an attack dog - very scary looking!  Unable to see what was outside (the mudroom juts out), I eventually went and turned on every lite at the other end of our home.  Shortly thereafter the barking stopped and she layed down, yet ready to pounce, constantly looking towards the door and kitchen windows.  The following week on the front page of the town paper someone had been broken into on the street behind the woods. Feeling guitly, called PD to ascertain if it was one of the houses behind us.  It wasn't, it was on the other end of that street.  However, it was within roughly same timeframe.  When PD asked why I didn't call them, I explained that I thought it was a deer or a bear at the backdoor.  Nothing happens in this area, but I guess it was dumb not to call.  Anyways, they told me to call whenever she barked differently again.  Guess it always pays to call PD when anything strange happens.  And, guess my girl saved us from a breakin!  I "saved" her, but she really "saved" me in more ways than one!

Someone else told me that burglars are more apt to avoid a house with a dog than a house with an alarm system!

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I can believe it. We "rescued" a collie. And he has a nasty bark IF he senses anyone outside the house that he does not know. I don't know how he does it. If it is my husband or me not a peep. But a mailman or someone he does not know - Watch Out. His bark sounds like a Rottweiler. 

People back away just from his bark. They don't know what to expect, so they steer clear.
 

[RoughDraft]

Interesting.  A burglar who is now serving 70 years for his crimes is schooling us on what to do to protect outselves.  

[Katcat1]

In this day and age if I owned a home I would have an alarm system.  Better safe then sorry and especially if your bedrooms are upstairs.  Both townhomes I owned had alarm systems and it made me feel secure.  I mean windows were wired, a glass door and whatever was easy access.  I did not have motion detectors because I owned a cat.

[ID2]

I always find it utterly shocking when my neighbors go away on vacation for weeks on end and don't even leave a timer light on at night! Their house is pitch black, prime target for a break in! When we're gone I have lights set up throughout my home to go on at coinciding times making it look like we are still home in our house. 

[Financialgrl]

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@Katcat1 wrote:

In this day and age if I owned a home I would have an alarm system.  Better safe then sorry and especially if your bedrooms are upstairs.  Both townhomes I owned had alarm systems and it made me feel secure.  I mean windows were wired, a glass door and whatever was easy access.  I did not have motion detectors because I owned a cat.

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All our homes here were wired for them when built and our news is recently showing a lot of clips on this with jailed thieves.  ALarm systems only means they know they have less time to steal and run bc of the process that's set up.      

When an alarm sounds and you can't get to the touchpad quickly enough, monitoring company calls you to ask if its real/mistake, you give the the password you'd previously set up with them and after verifying its a real need, they will call police/fire/medical.  If I don't answer they will call my emergency contact to see if they know if I'm supposed to be home before dispatching help.  If the county dispatches help for more than two false alarms, our county bills the homeowners for them.  

[gardenman]

I knew a gypsy carpenter who followed the warm weather and would supplement his income by robbing houses he'd worked on in that community before moving on. He was a careful thief in that he would only take a small item of decent value from each home. If the woman owned valuable diamond earrings, he'd take just one and leave the other one. The woman would assume she'd dropped or lost the other one. Who would steal just one? He'd take one gold necklace and leave the rest, or one piece fo fine jewelry. If they had a cash stockpile he'd peel off a portion but leave the rest. Why would a thief leave cash behind? The homeowners would think "We must have spent that money somewhere.and forgotten it." If they had fine silverware, he'd make off with one setting and leave the rest.

He'd case the houses while working on them and know exactly where things were. Just before leaving town he'd go from house to house and grab what he wanted. He'd sell the stuff in his next town and then start casing the places there while he worked on their homes. 

His work was often window and door related. If he was installing a new door, he'd copy the key to the new lock. If he was installing a window he knew how to rig the lock to make it easy to open from the outside and could also bypass the alarm on that window. He was a very clever guy who did this for most of his working life. (He's dead now.) As far as I know, no one ever caught on to what he did. He wasn't greedy and never tried to grab a lot of stuff, but just a bit from everyone. A few hundred dollars worth of stuff from thirty or forty houses made a nice supplement to his income. He'd do that twice a year, once when moving north and again when moving south.

He was a real pro at what he did, both as a carpenter and as a burglar. He was a very friendly, affable guy who everyone liked and no one suspected of wrong-doing. Over his career, he stole a lot of stuff and made a lot of money from people who often didn't even realize they'd been robbed.

[Financialgrl]

Wanted to start a separate thread on this  to see if others got same email -  just yesterday got an email from Amazon saying - "never miss a package delivery again".  It's called Amazon Keyed Entry Delivery.  You have to be an Amazon Prime member, pay $250 for a system you need to install/have installed.  It's supposedly set up to allow temporary access for delivery persons. 

My first thought was - you've got to be kidding and that it was a joke.  Who, in their right mind allows some stranger to your home to deliver a package??  SO, I googled and it's apparently real.  If I am expecting a package I try to reschedule delivery or ask a neighbor if they will be home and put the item (if not bulky,  large,  or heavy) into their garage till I come back.  

[Abrowneyegirl]

Our area had a string of break-ins last year when a small group of thieves realized that garage doors are not locked when they are closed.

Most people think that if your garage door is down it is locked, it is not unless you install a separate locking mechanism.

Thieves would come by during the day in "work vans' yank open garage doors and steal items out of the garage or enter the home if the homeowner left the door to the house unlocked.

[Rockycoast]

In our previous home both neighbors on either side of us were burglarized.  The reason we were not...a very large protective Collie. He even sent a burglar running late at night from outside our neighbor's home by his visicous barking when he sensed/saw him. I got up just in time to see the guy running across the street as fast as his long legs could carry him.  In our present home we also have a Collie. Best alert/defense system there is.

[bonnielu]

Thanks.  Gone are the days we can leave the house and cars unlocked.  Used to have a neighbor who went away for weeks... everything unlocked.  She left her radio on at the front door. l also one at the back door.  Never a problem.