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Ways To Prevent A Holiday Break-In (Part1)
Apart from what is lost and the damage caused, personal feelings also come into play. To find out that total strangers may have been in your home going through your personal belongings may leave a strange sense of vulnerability and helplessness and of course the incident will spoil your well deserved holiday in Spain.
It may seem an axiom, but it is very important to lock doors and windows, even if you are going to be away from home for a few minutes. The new thieves in Spain are real specialists in open doors with a simple piece of plastic, sliding it through the gap between the door frame and the door leaf, a technique known as the slip method. There is an invasion of people from the Eastern European countries, often women moving itinerantly throughout the Spanish geography. In one morning they can open dozens of apartments. Usually they enter a building block taking many precautions to ensure that the apartments are empty. They ring the bell, look under the door to see if there is light, examine the peephole and stick their ears onto the door to listen for any noise or sound.
If you have to leave…
If you have to leave the property for a few hours try not to leave valuables, jewellery or cash inside the house. Take them or leave them with a family member or reliable friend. In case you have no choice but to leave them in the house, do not keep them in the most obvious places such as the master bedroom, living room etc. It is advisable to hide them in a package or bag and leave them in the kitchen or bathroom, areas that thieves usually do not register due to the short time they have to act. Robberies usually last a couple of minutes and criminals mainly check bedrooms and living rooms.
A detailed list of valuable possessions
This advice is not to prevent theft, but to try to recover their belongings in the event that the thieves ransack your home. Make a detailed list of valuables, jewellery, audio-visual equipment, laptops etc. Write down the serial numbers of devices and inscriptions in the case of jewellery or even better a close up picture can also be of help. This makes it much easier for the police to identify, and be able to return, the stolen merchandises.
Be careful; do not disclose your absence back home.
Your home back in the UK can also be in danger. Who has not uploaded a photo of your vacation into your Facebook account? Do it while you are around and not during your absence. You may be giving valuable free clues to thieves and informing them that your house is empty. Do not discuss with strangers or presumed about the magnificent journey that your planning from exactly the 22nd of July till 5th of September and, of course, do not leave notes indicating when you will return. On numerous occasions, the police have investigated burglaries that have been informed, by someone close the family to a burglar that there is money or valuables on a particular property. Sometimes been disloyal employees or even friends, or even have been cases where the thief was the boyfriend of the cleaning lady.
Good locks and doors.
As far as possible, install a good security door and a good lock. Ideally, the case of a good lock with an anti-lever door could prevent two of the most common techniques used by thieves. There are various resistance classes for windows and doors. Resistance classes have been defined for windows and doors based on an in-depth collaboration between window manufacturers, the police and insurance companies. The resistance classes for burglary protection are categorised in the DIN V ENV 1627/2011 standard. There are six resistance classes for windows and doors which enhance burglary protection. The resistance classes concern the resistance time on the one hand and the type of intruder on the other. The simplest form of protection is offered in resistance class RC 1 N. A window security system of this kind is suitable for windows and balcony doors on the upper storeys of a building, for example. This burglary protection level relates to a relatively simple break-in using physical force. Maximum burglary protection is offered in a resistance class RC 6.