Keeping Your Home Burglar-Free

Sept. 6, 2001 -- After his career as a professional thief led him to an eight-year prison stint, Bob Portenier went straight and now works as a crime prevention consultant. He tells PrimeTime what you can do to make your home a less likely target for a burglar.

Portenier, who says he has a "Ph.D. in crime," has not lost the skills he developed in years of breaking into houses. In a test for PrimeTime, it took him just 7 ½ minutes to bust through the glass window of a concealed basement door, get inside the house, collect guns, jewelry, antique silver, and electronic equipment, and then be on his way.

With more than 8,000 home burglaries every day across the country, and only 15 percent of home burglars ever caught and arrested, it is worth taking precautions to make your home burglar-proof. Following are tips from Portenier and Ed O'Carroll, a crime prevention officer with the Fairfax County Police Department in Virginia.

Protecting Your Home

• Do not walk in on a crime. Never enter your home if you suspect an intruder may be inside. Women in particular, says Portenier, have a tendency to wander around the house when they are suspicious, looking to see if anything has been stolen. "They walk into trouble," he says, when the best thing to do would be to leave and call 911.

• Do not confront an intruder. If you walk in on a crime in progress, leave as quickly as possible and call 911. You never want to have a confrontation with a criminal. "You don't know if this person is on drugs. You don't know if he's psychotic, you don't know if he's an escaped convict," says Portenier. In order to prevent a property crime from escalating into a violent one, "you leave immediately."

• Get an alarm. "To me, the best insurance a homeowner can have is having a security system," says Portenier. But, cautions O'Carroll, who works for the Fairfax County Police Department, an alarm system should not be your only defense against burglary. "Don't have a false sense of security that an alarm system is going to keep the bad guy out. An alarm system doesn't make your doors any tighter, your windows any stronger … an alarm system just lets you know when someone's gotten in."

• Get to know your neighbors. Join a neighborhood watch program in your area or start one yourself. "Neighbors are your best defense against burglary," says O'Carroll. "We rely upon neighbors to be the eyes and ears of law enforcement, and oftentimes it's a concerned neighbor, a citizen who has zero tolerance for crime, that makes that all-important call to 911."

• Install good locks. Make sure exterior doors and windows have strong locks that are in working order. Don't forget the sliding doors on the patio or balcony, which are common entry points for burglars. O'Carroll suggests a horizontal "charley bar" that keeps the doors closed and cannot be lifted out of the track. "A lot of folks just put a stick in the track," he says. "That can be lifted out with a coat hanger."

• Find a new place for your valuables. Lingerie drawers, night stands and under mattresses are often not-so-secret hiding places for cash, jewelry and guns. Time is too important to a burglar to keep searching for your valuables, so keep them in places other people don't.

• Keep your doors locked at all times. Even if you are just working in the back yard do not leave your front door unlocked.

• Do not leave a key out. Instead of hiding a key in the mailbox or under a doormat, give an extra one to a neighbor for emergencies.

• Keep the garage door locked when not in use. If left open, it's a virtual invitation for a burglar to choose your home.

• Use timers. To make your home appear as if it is occupied, use timers for your lights, radios and televisions. "It's good to have the radios and TVs come on and off throughout the day," says O'Carroll. "It gives the illusion of occupancy."

• Keep shrubbery trimmed. It prevents a criminal from using it to conceal his presence and gives an opportunity for neighbors to observe activity, says O'Carroll.

• Don't advertise your absence. Park a car in your driveway in your absence, have some garbage left in your cans, stop mail delivery, and consider having your lawn mowed or snow shoveled while you are away.

• Make your street address visible. If the numbers are easy to read, it will help police locate your home.

• Install porch and walkway lights Outside lighting is a good deterrent against crime.

• Protect your back yard with a fence. "It shows ownership," says O'Carroll. "It tells people where they should and shouldn't be … We want to make it difficult for anyone to get back there. Anyone tries to scale a fence, we hope our neighbors are going to see it and call the police department." But, cautions Portenier, while a fence may be intended to provide privacy for the homeowner, it can also offer protection for a would-be burglar instead.

• Get a dog, or pretend to. Dogs make most would-be intruders think twice. If you don't want to care for a dog, buy a dog food bowl and a chain as a deterrent, suggests O'Carroll.

The unfortunate reality is that no home is completely burglar proof. "There's no magic cure. If a burglar is determined to get in they're gonna get in," says O'Carroll, "but if they're casing the neighborhood and looking at hundreds of homes, we want to make sure they don't pick yours."