Tips: reduce the risk of burglary

Not everyone spends the same amount of attention to securing his or her home, even though this is important. Last year, more than 50,000 homeowners reported a burglary in Belgium. Fortunately, we see a decrease of no less than thirty percent compared to 2012. In order to contribute to the positive decrease in the number of home burglaries, this article gives tips and highlights one specific alarmsystemen tip.

Burglary rates in Belgium

As mentioned above, there is a decrease in the number of burglaries at homeowners. Nevertheless, the number of burglaries should not be underestimated. On average, burglaries take place once an hour, with burglars entering your home within an average of 30 seconds using various burglary methods and causing an average amount of €2650 in material damage. A fact you would like to prevent. But how can you ensure that the chance of burglary in your home is as low as possible?

Tips for burglary prevention

You can start with some small adjustments or habits that can be included in daily life. For example, you can consider the following tips:

Don’t make it too easy for burglars to break in, for example by leaving your doors and/or windows open or not closing them properly (especially many people forget or refuse to do this while shopping), or for example by leaving a container under your window so burglars can easily climb inside.

Don’t invite burglars

Don’t invite burglars by putting your house in the spotlight. Don’t leave valuables lying around in the burglar’s sight: for example, if the burglar sees a macbook lying on the window frame, he or she will know that there is at least a good loot waiting for him.

Use 112 if necessary or use your neighbourhood
Always call 911 if you see or hear anything suspicious. If you feel there is a burglar inside, don’t look for the confrontation, but make as much noise as possible and call 112 for backup. You can also join forces with your neighbourhood to make your neighbourhood a lot safer. This can be done, for example, by means of social control, extra signs and the creation of a neighbourhood hatsap group.

Preventive security

Provide preventive security by sticking stickers on your door that indicate that your house is secured. Burglars are also not very fond of dogs, so feel free to put up a warning sign that you have a dog and/or really take a dog.

The best form of preventive security, and also of securing your home in general, is to have an alarm system installed.

Alarm system
An alarm system helps you to secure your living environment. For example, an alarm system offers 24/7 security, a higher sense of security, the possibility to link your alarm system to a control room, camera security or other components and security with both preventive and reactive operation. Preventive because if burglars see that a house has an alarm system, they prefer to skip your house and continue looking for a house that is bad or not secured, and reactive at the same time because the alarm system will react and go off if a burglar has actually entered your house or tries to do so. For these reasons, buying an alarm system is seen as the best tip for securing your home.

In order to make the best choice between different alarm systems and providers, we recommend that you compare quotes for alarm systems in order to make the best choice.