How To Deter Burglars? (4 Step Guide)

In this quick guide, we will be covering the basics of deterring burglars and break ins, why it is so important and what kind of things you will need to deter them.

This will act as a summary of the things you can do to positively affect your premises security and deter burglars. 

In sum, we’ll cover:

• Deterring Burglars Basics
• What You Need to Deter Burglars 
• 6 Ways to Deter Criminals 
• Deterring Burglars in 4 Steps 
• Summary of Deterring Burglars

What You Need To Know About Deterring Burglars 

Unlike what you may have seen in heist films and TV shows there is often not a large elaborate plan to burgle somewhere, and it is usually a fairly low effort operation, normally due to the owner’s lack of security measures or making your location look like a more viable target.

This is not to say that there is zero planning when it comes to a burglary, but more to say that they can be spur of the moment, or chosen after an initial scope of the house or business an evening or day prior. 

The majority of burglars have a checklist in their head that basically serves as a difficulty scale, if your property ticks certain boxes they are much more likely to attempt a break in. This is why you need to ensure you can hit a few of these boxes before they even attempt to burgle you. 

Things like outdoor lights, visible CCTV cameras, signage and even guard dogs can be highly effective. Less and less places will deploy 24/7 human security as there are much more viable methods to keep somewhere secure around the clock.

6 Supplies For Deterring Burglars 

There are a lot of things that you could use to deter burglars and different supplies that you will need to keep your business or home secure. Let’s breakdown 6 different ways to deter burglars and what you will need for each of these methods.

There are countless ways to keep your premises secure, and some are a lot easier than you think. As we all know, a criminal will often check out a location before they commit a crime, it is fairly unlikely they will do a spur of the moment crime. 

However this is not always the case, if a house or business looks like it does not take its security seriously a criminal may take a chance and try and break into a location.

There are a lot of different deterrents that can stop someone even considering breaking into your property. Let’s have a look at some of the most common ones that you can do and how they are effective at deterring a burglar. 

A Dog

One of the most common reasons that a burglar does not attempt a break in is a dog, especially a large one. They present a lot of different issues for the would-be criminal, from loud barking to startle passers by or neighbors, to the fear of injury or need to encapsulate or lock the dog away before committing a crime. 

There are a few factors that a burglar doesn’t want to deal with, being able to quickly and quietly get in and out of a location undetected is their main goal. Even the presence of a warning sign ‘Beware of Dog’ can be enough to deter a criminal and make them look for a different target.

Security Checks 

Knowing your weaknesses will allow you to better protect your property, you can’t stop a ship from sinking if you can’t find the leak, the same goes with security, if you do not know where you are vulnerable, it can be hard to secure an area.

Hiring a security professional to survey your property or home will allow them to give you recommendations and suggest what you need to protect your valuables and information. 

CCTV Cameras

CCTV has been, and will continue to be one of the most effective methods to deter criminals. To put this into context, up to half of the crimes per 100 are prevented or deterred by CCTV cameras in the UK. 

With advancements in CCTV technology, the owner can be notified when someone steps into the frame and be sent a message to their phone instantly. Being able to know exactly when someone is being filmed by your camera makes it a much more preventive measure as opposed to reactive. 

Alongside features such as two-way audio, they can even communicate with the criminal and tell them they are being watched in real-time; Although people use this to speak to delivery drivers or postal workers, in a similar vein, there are a lot of uses and things that can be done with a doorbell camera too.

Remote Indoor Lights 

Tricking burglars into thinking you are at home or your business is a smart move in deterring crime, aside from rigging up a ‘Home Alone’ setup with string and a Michael Jordan cutout on a train, you can use remotely activated lights.

You can use Google Home, Alexa, other smart home devices, or even timers for your lights when you are away to keep your premises secure and look like there is someone frequently in the locations.

Outdoor Motion-Activated Lighting

 Something as simple as proximity triggered lighting can be simple enough to deter criminals, a lot of burglars will use the cover of darkness to commit their crimes, so illuminating the area around your property will keep it much more secure and ward off criminals. 

With the added potential of a proximity light being attached to a CCTV system, it is unlikely a burglar would approach a property with these. Especially as they could tip off neighbours or passers by that something is afoot. 

Don’t Post On Socials

This is a problem that has come out of literally nowhere, but the digital age has brought the rise of cyber research before a burglary, this is where a criminal will see that you are on holiday or away and actively burgle your business or home. 

A lot of experts recommend to limit or even not post when you are away on your social media, and only post when you have returned home, this means that criminals will not know that you are away at all. 

Honourable Mention – Dummy Cameras

In one of our previous blogs, we discussed dummy cameras at length, and in the right situation they are incredibly useful and work well in a vacuum, and the main reason for them is to act as a deterrent, so you would think we would include them in this list, well you would be wrong. 

Dummy cameras are a viable choice, but the reason we have left them off the official list is due to the inclusion of real CCTV cameras, due to the minimal price difference, we would always recommend going for a working surveillance technology as opposed to a pseudo camera.  

How To Deter Burglars (4 Steps)

As we have looked at above, there are countless ways that you can deter burglars from breaking into your property, now we are going to look at a quick 5-point plan to deter these criminals.

Step 1: Scope out your Property

Firstly you need to look at your business or house with fresh eyes, and think about how secure it is and how you would approach it if you were a criminal.

Look for where they might come from, what they can see from the road or the street, if there are clear sightlines out of the windows or into them, and so on and so forth. 

You can even request a home inspection that will allow a security professional to scope out your location and recommend different security methods that they think would suit your area. 

The best part about this, is that if you pick the right company, they will tailor make a plan for you and not just say you need X, Y, and Z just because they are the most expensive. 

Step 2: Plan your security methods

Once you have a better idea of how to protect your premises, you will be able to plan out what you need to get and systems you need to put into place.

Depending on your location, property size, budget and a few other factors, there may be different priorities, and knowing what will work best for you will require a little foresight and security research.

Step 3: Implement your deterrents

Now you have a good idea of what you want, where measures should be placed or how to implement them, you will be able to set up your security to deter burglars.

Having some kind of proximity triggered alert or light is one of the most simple ways of keeping your property secure, as this will take a lot of the guess work away from your security. 

To put this into context, a traditional security system such as an older model of CCTV might just continuously record footage, but unless there is a breach or someone is watching the feed it can be hard to find the criminals and stop them. Think of this as reactive security not proactive.

Step 4: Review every 6-12 months 

Probably the most important aftercare step is to review your security measures every few months, this can be as simple as just checking everything is working properly, if you feel there are any blindspots or weaknesses in your system and thinking about how to counteract them.

A lot of people think of security as a set and forget situation, but it is definitely more of a review and revision, always evolving and developing to keep you safe and secure.

Deterring Burglars Summary 

As we can see, there are quite a lot of options for keeping your home or business secure, and some do not even require any cost and are just common sense or forward planning. 

That being said, it is important to invest in some paid methods to keep your locations secure, even if this is just some motion-activated lights or a basic CCTV setup. 

Finding a security setup that works for your company or home and is within your budget is important, but will cost you much less in the long run as opposed to a break in. 

The cost of a break-in is not just limited in what the burglars take, but also how safe you feel at your own home, the cost is not just monetary but also your comfort level at your business or house.