ChickSpeak

Do you know that feeling when your heart stops and you forget that you’re supposed to breathe?  Panic.

That was definitely the feeling I felt when I came home alone to my house in the city at about 6pm on a Monday after work…to find my back door wide open.  There was no way my roommates could be home yet, and I knew immediately the house had been broken into. 

I quietly crept upstairs to find both of my roommates’ rooms ransacked.  Drawers and boxes were thrown on the floor and overturned, with jewelry and clothes everywhere.  I obviously wanted to see if my basement bedroom was in the same disarray but was too scared to go downstairs alone.  I left the house quickly to call 911. 

HERE ARE 5 TIPS FOR DETERRING & PREVENTING BREAK-INS THAT I LEARNED FROM MY EXPERIENCE:

Go with your gut.  If something raises a red flag that you have been robbed, get out of the house right then and there.  You don’t want to encounter the thief in the act and further endanger yourself.  Come back with police or a group of people to confirm.  I should not have gone upstairs to prove my instincts were right, which was pressing my luck big time.

Have a deadbolt in every main outside door.  Simple turn locks on door handles offer minimal security.  I watched my friend successfully pick our basic door handle lock with a credit card just to see if he could.

Install an alarm system.  If you can’t install one, ask a friend with an alarm system to call his/her security company to ask for extra window alarm stickers.  Paste them up on all your windows and outside doors.  We’ll be sporting ADT stickers courtesy of my neighbor very soon.

Get timers for lights, TVs, or radios.  The best thieves wait to know your schedule and know the patterns of when you leave your house.  Changing up the timing of lights and sounds in the house will throw them off.  We have been leaving a TV and different lights on every day since the robbery.

Fence your yard if you have one and lock all gates.  Even if your gate or fence is not high, it will certainly pose as a hindrance.  We now have my gym locker Masterlock on our back gate.