View from the cop: Crime & punishment
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AJC.com > Metro > View from the cop > Archives > 2008 > November > 03 > Entry
Good hardware deters burglars
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Many burglars will only spend about a minute trying to defeat the locks holding them out of your house. A combination of good neighbors and good locks can add up to a big deterrent to a burglar.
Probably about half of the burglaries we see involve the bad guy coming in an unlocked door or window. So first things first, lock them up. If your front door does not have a dead bolt, get one. A good dead bolt should have a 1 ½ to 2” throw. Make sure it’s well installed.
Sliding doors are sometimes easy access into the home. You can install commercially available locks or use a broomstick or dowel in the inside track to jam the door from sliding open. To prevent the door from being lifted from the track, drill a hole through sliding door frame and the fixed frame then slide a pin through, connected both.
Double-hung windows can be secured with key locks. You can “pin” them by drilling a small hole into a forty-five degree angle between the inner and outer frames. Insert a nail that can be removed. Don’t forget to place the alarm-company decal on the windows or if you prefer, the picture of the Rotweiller foaming at the mouth. I have a photo of my Uncle Dewey after “Tequila Night at the Moose Lodge” posted on the windows and door. It reads: “Come on in, I’d love to meet you!” under it. He’s smiling and his eyes are going in different directions and he’s drooling all over his old “Johnny Paycheck for President” airbrushed t-shirt he got in Panama City in 1984. Not only do we not have any burglar problems but have us on THEIR do-not-call list. Whatever works!
Check your doors. Flimsy doors don’t keep anyone out. Unfortunately, many older apartments have sub-standard door frames and doors that cave in on the first kick.
Check it and request that maintenance come out and look them over. Make it know that you want a new door if that old one doesn’t fit tightly, or has an obvious weakness. (In apartment communities you sometimes have to be persistent so be persistent.)
Install a peephole or wide-angle viewer in all entry doors so you can see who it is outside without opening the door. Forget door chains. I don’t know why they even install them. They don’t keep out intruders. Speaking of opening the door, don’t be afraid to ask who it is when somebody knocks or rings the doorbell. Find out before you open the door.
Speaking of opening the door (again,) be mindful that we got a couple of calls from residents as well as complaints from retail areas such as the grocery stores that young males were trying to solicit money for a basketball team. Sometimes these are legit but there have been some problems with these being phonies too. Ask questions and request a phone number to call and verify. Be careful.
Check your lights on the outside of the house. This has more to do with thieves looking to break into your car but if you read this report often enough you’ll remember where we occasionally have a cat burglar who probably originally intended to go into the garage and then into the car and steal from it but found the door leading to the kitchen from the garage open and took a purse from the kitchen counter. These night thieves hate light. Motion detection units are affordable and be bought at hardware stores and then easily installed.
Keep the bushes cut back enough so that you can see your windows. Under the window, plant bushes that have nice sharp points on them.
House numbers—(this is a pet peeve of mine) should be large and loud. It costs valuable response time when we cannot find your house number. Make them painfully obvious! Neon is fine.
Put timers on your lights and even your stereo inside the house. Don’t let the mail pile up. Call a neighbor to pick it and the paper up. Why have your neighbor pick it up instead of the post office canceling it for a while? The less people who know you’re gone, the better.
Use the Out of Town House Check Form. You can download it at www.sandyspringspolice.org under “downloadable forms.”
And finally. Remember to inventory what you have. Serial numbers and digital photos of items are great for recovering stolen property. A major problem with just about all police departments is not being able to identify recovered stolen property. With digital photography and computers, there’s no reason you can’t have beautiful 5x7 glossies of your expensive jewelry, electronics, heirlooms. Anyway, the point is, have a record of what you have and put it on CD or something, somewhere, where we can access it later. For instance, my Uncle Renaldo has an impressive collection of deer heads he keeps in his trailer up near Ball Ground. Sometimes, when he gets into a bottle of Old Gumshoe, he puts one of them on and chases the neighbors around some. It’s all good harmless fun but the point is if they steal it and we recover it, we need for you to be able to identify it so we can give it back.
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Comments
By mustang100
November 3, 2008 8:04 AM | Link to this
Warn your Uncle Renaldo it IS hunting season and that he’s not the only one up there imbibing Old Gumshoe.
By FunnyHaha
November 3, 2008 8:20 AM | Link to this
Good info though your ‘air looms’ won’t be floating if you spell them heirlooms. Makes a little more sense. :)
By bubba
November 3, 2008 8:28 AM | Link to this
Kudos to Roswell for screwing up the reversible lanes following the twice yearly time change. Really appreciated sitting in traffic in the one lane incoming this AM
By Once Bitten
November 3, 2008 8:52 AM | Link to this
We had a break in one Friday afternoon. We came home to discover the front door kicked in and the house ransacked. We lost all of our electronics (except for for the rediculously expensive turntable), a couple weapons and some family heirloom jewelry.
We had a complete inventory of all the missing property with photos, including serial numbers of items that had them.
We never got any of the property back. So don’t expect that these steps will work - but you have (almost) no chance to get it back unless you do.
By Cassie
November 3, 2008 9:07 AM | Link to this
Bubba - at the river?
I have to say the best two things to protect you against home invasion are a good, barking dog and a nice, loud shotgun.
By Jeff
November 3, 2008 10:07 AM | Link to this
Personally I am installing 1/2” lexan panels behind the windows, that come 3/4 the way down the window. It’s an old house and the windows dont open up all the way. Couple that with steel security doors, alarm, big dog, and i think we’re in good shape. They can’t get in our out of the house with anything of size, and they better be VERY small to get out the window.
By James
November 3, 2008 10:09 AM | Link to this
If you have a gun collection like I do, invest in a good safe. Expect to spend no less than $800 or more for a very good one. I take detailed photos and catalog everything including make, model, manufacture date and serial numbers - placing it all on CD and in my safe deposit box at the bank. The safe is great for securing any other valuables like jewelry, watches, money, etc.
By MC
November 3, 2008 10:21 AM | Link to this
Lights on motion detectors are MUCH better than “security lights” that are on all the time and merely help the burglar find his way in. You want to make the burglar think somebody has seen him.
“Security lights” are Georgia Power’s way of getting you to buy electricity when you don’t need it, in the middle of the night.
By Gah
November 3, 2008 10:38 AM | Link to this
Just having a sign in the yard saying you have a security system (whether you have one or not) is a good deterrent. Most crooks will not take the chance of being caught, and will move on to a home that looks easier to access. On the other hand, if you have security, don’t advertise it…let them get caught by it when they try to enter. Then, the crooks won’t know whether or not you have security or just a sign, and they won’t know if a home that has no signs has it either. This really DOES make sense! LOL
By Thanks
November 3, 2008 10:53 AM | Link to this
great point about the gun locks James! That is smart thinking…
By Sallied Parry
November 3, 2008 11:54 AM | Link to this
The odds of getting robbed at home are small. The odds of getting locked out of your burglar proof castle are 100 percent. Then what? If a burglar cant get in, neither can you, moron.
No, I dont lock nothing. However once in a while the door does lock unexpectedly for one reason or another, and I get locked out, but all I need to do to get back inside is shimmy through the termite damage in the back of the house under the deck. A couple pieces of plywood lift easily to allow access to my lower floor. The burglars will never figure it out, and it’s all good.
I hate termites.
By vexorg
November 3, 2008 12:04 PM | Link to this
Burglar Alarm systems DO NOT work. Ask any beat cop anywhere in Atlanta when the last time they actually caught a burglar in the act? With the number of false alarms on a recurring basis, beat cops take their time when answering an alarm call. Besides, those alarm companies hire the cheapest labor they can get to monitor your alarm system….ask them how long it takes one of their operators to get off their butt and call your local police when your alarm is going off???
As for having a burglar alarm company sign…patient burglars WILL test your home to see if anyone will respond….if nobody comes within a reasonable time, your gonna get looted and pillaged!
Good locks, burglar bars on windows, good solid steel doors and doorframes, and a BIG dog keep the methhead/crackhead burglars away. The professional burglars don’t bother with low and middle class neighborhoods; anything worth stealing has been stolen already.
As for recovery of stolen items….if you really, really want your stuff back, wait until your local P.D. has an auction……or go to your local flea market. More stolen property is sold at flea markets because the local police don’t have enough manpower to check every item with a serial number to see if it stolen.
As for securing a sliding glass door….best thing to do is replace it with a SOLID door…..burglars will just smash it out with a handy brick or rock laying around…they won’t waste any time trying to jimmy it.
Last, make sure your safe is BOLTED down to the floor; burglars can move that 800 pound safe if they believe there is something REALLY good inside!
By vexorg
November 3, 2008 12:09 PM | Link to this
Burglar Alarm systems DO NOT work. Ask any beat cop anywhere in Atlanta when the last time they actually caught a burglar in the act? With the number of false alarms on a recurring basis, beat cops take their time when answering an alarm call. Besides, those alarm companies hire the cheapest labor they can get to monitor your alarm system….ask them how long it takes one of their operators to get off their butt and call your local police when your alarm is going off???
As for having a burglar alarm company sign…patient burglars WILL test your home to see if anyone will respond….if nobody comes within a reasonable time, your gonna get looted and pillaged!
Good locks, burglar bars on windows, good solid steel doors and doorframes, and a BIG dog keep the methhead/crackhead burglars away. The professional burglars don’t bother with low and middle class neighborhoods; anything worth stealing has been stolen already.
As for recovery of stolen items….if you really, really want your stuff back, wait until your local P.D. has an auction……or go to your local flea market. More stolen property is sold at flea markets because the local police don’t have enough manpower to check every item with a serial number to see if it stolen.
As for securing a sliding glass door….best thing to do is replace it with a SOLID door…..burglars will just smash it out with a handy brick or rock laying around…they won’t waste any time trying to jimmy it.
Last, make sure your safe is BOLTED down to the floor; burglars can move that 800 pound safe if they believe there is something REALLY good inside!
By vexorg
November 3, 2008 12:10 PM | Link to this
Burglar Alarm systems DO NOT work. Ask any beat cop anywhere in Atlanta when the last time they actually caught a burglar in the act? With the number of false alarms on a recurring basis, beat cops take their time when answering an alarm call. Besides, those alarm companies hire the cheapest labor they can get to monitor your alarm system….ask them how long it takes one of their operators to get off their butt and call your local police when your alarm is going off???
As for having a burglar alarm company sign…patient burglars WILL test your home to see if anyone will respond….if nobody comes within a reasonable time, your gonna get looted and pillaged!
Good locks, burglar bars on windows, good solid steel doors and doorframes, and a BIG dog keep the methhead/crackhead burglars away. The professional burglars don’t bother with low and middle class neighborhoods; anything worth stealing has been stolen already.
As for recovery of stolen items….if you really, really want your stuff back, wait until your local P.D. has an auction……or go to your local flea market. More stolen property is sold at flea markets because the local police don’t have enough manpower to check every item with a serial number to see if it stolen.
As for securing a sliding glass door….best thing to do is replace it with a SOLID door…..burglars will just smash it out with a handy brick or rock laying around…they won’t waste any time trying to jimmy it.
Last, make sure your safe is BOLTED down to the floor; burglars can move that 800 pound safe if they believe there is something REALLY good inside!
By Lt. Steve
November 3, 2008 3:34 PM | Link to this
Dude, up here it’s Air Looms. Part of the rural flavor.
By Dixie
November 4, 2008 6:50 AM | Link to this
You could tear down your house, bring in a ratty double wide, cover 1 end w/ an old blue tarp and tape up 1 front window w/ cardboard on the outside.(so it looks like it has already been robbed) Then, on your driveway, park a junker with 1 wheel off and a block holding up the car. Leave 1 window rolled down. (This is less effective if you park your Lexus suv next to it) Let weeds grow in the yard, rake a pile of leaves about 2/3 to 1 side and get a faded pink flamingo and lay it down so it looks like you’re too lazy to stand it up. Bring in a large dog house with “Killer” painted over the door, put a stake in the ground w/ a massive chain attached, and weed-eat your grass down to the dirt so it looks like a path from a dog pacing at the end of the chain. Cut two 5 gallon mud buckets about 6 inches deep for the food and water bowls. Put water in 1 and turn the other upside down. Go to Spencer’s Gifts and buy a couple of gargantuan fake dog poops and place them in the grass. (these will smell better than the real thing unless they were made in China) Put a cheezy plastic mailbox cover on that has poinsettias & says “Merry Christmas”. Make sure it’s crooked and leave 1 corner flapping in the wind. Place a pair of muddy, size 15 boots outside the back door with the shoelaces pulled out. Put up a clothes line and hang a couple of thin, stained towels with shredded edges.
Am I forgetting anything?
Maybe with luck the robbers will have sympathy and leave some of thier booty from the last house.
By Dixie
November 4, 2008 6:51 AM | Link to this
My apologies - I was having an Analchord moment.
Seriously - Bolting your safe (from the inside of the safe) to the FRAME of the house is great. Make sure it isn’t just screwed into the subfloor or sheetrock. Those will give way by tipping the safe. Use bolts with deep threads and predrill the holes using a bit that is 1/8” smaller than the bolt. Take the time to find the floor joists and make sure your bolts go at least 2” into those. If you happen to be home, shoot first and ask questions later. (That’s the way they think too)
By Cassie
November 4, 2008 8:58 AM | Link to this
LOL @ Dixie (and damn skippy)
By Stone
November 4, 2008 9:26 AM | Link to this
Good luck today everyone on your candidate’s victory. Vote…often.
By Hootie!!!
November 4, 2008 3:00 PM | Link to this
Gotta stop by the sporting goods store today after work and pick up some extra ammunition… just in case “you know who” doesn’t win and the riots begin.
By Hootie!!!
November 4, 2008 3:05 PM | Link to this
Gotta stop by the sporting goods store today after work and pick up some extra ammunition… just in case “you know who” doesn’t win and the riots begin.
By Tom Becker
November 6, 2008 6:27 AM | Link to this
Racism and the Berlin Wall
Like Berlin, there will be rejoicing over the breach. But a leaner, meaner, more sinister Russia emerged after Berlin, with the same nuclear clout.
Racism will still enable lesser men to rise to the level of their incompetence over more qualified “lesser” men.
Racism will retrench in stealth, cloaked in tradition, and stoked by fear. Look for more secessionist talk, especially from the aryan brotherhood and white supremicists, who used to appear on Oprah. They’ve been awfully quiet lately.
Part of the problem is that the USA that Obama inherits will be a rifled shell of what it once was. Bush crooks and cronies searched all the nooks and crannies for any untook pennies in fear that we’ll book nannies.
We’re broke. The conservatives handed over the country in the same financial condition that the Confederacy handed over the South in 1865.
Bush’s reputation can never be untarnished, like Nixon’s. Bush is our great national disgrace. Look at him lately? His hair? His visage. His general comportment and demeanor are as ransacked as our treasury. He is a bad man. He’s beating himself up. His own father splashed the Koolaid back in his face. There wasn’t supposed to be an Iraq War.
He is a very bad man. God help us. he still has time to do even more damage.
and he will. Abominable pardons. Acts of war. Treasury treason. Is there nothing to stop this obscene presidency?
Except inauguration?
By GLENN YOUNG
November 6, 2008 11:08 AM | Link to this
Steve,
Great article but understand that the best deadbolt in the world will not prevent someone from kicking in a door that does not have doorjamb reinforcement, such as Door Jamb Armor (www.djarmor.com). The deadbolt will only be as secure as the material it is anchored into. Also, broom sticks or bars will not prevent people from getting through sliding glass doors that can be lifted off of the track because they were installed backwards. I would love the opportunity to talk with you further on these and other issues.
Sincerely,
Glenn Young
By "Spank" the monkey
November 6, 2008 2:20 PM | Link to this
Tom Becker/Analchorus- please keep that crap off this page and over on Wooten’s, Bookman’s or Rick’s blog. Dumping your political views on a cop blog blows. It’s like taking a s** on your neighbors yard. Please do me a favor and s** in your own backyard Analboy and get out of mine.
By Fred
November 6, 2008 6:51 PM | Link to this
AM I the only one seeing that this blog seems to have disappeared?
By Cindy
November 6, 2008 9:41 PM | Link to this
Fred,i’m having trouble finding any blog right now that isn’t a little “off”. We’ll be able to participate again in a week or so…hopefully.
By Dixie
November 6, 2008 10:23 PM | Link to this
Oh so sorry Spank - I thought we were playing in Lt. Steve’s back yard.
Fred - I’m w/ Cindy. I think the notes come like the wind - some whirlwinds - then some calm.
By Tom Becker
November 7, 2008 10:44 AM | Link to this
Should public office holders live in the districts they represent? OF course not. And while we’re at it, why not build an ivory tower in dunwoody where they ALL can live. Then let’s build a special amusement park for just office holders. and shopping safaris. dont forget palin-style shopping safaris. Palin deserved it. Most public chicks (nancy pelosi, tipper gore, elizabeth dole) dont.
Coddling public servants is what brought Rome down. (that, and those toga parties).
I’m thinking about Palin at a toga party now. Life could be a dream. Sha na na naaa.
All these new faces in public arenas trump the poster child politician with grey hair and a fat round white face. Newt is unelectable. Round fat faces are out. Newt should market a line of bedpans, you know, the kind he stepped in to force his wife’s signature on that divorce settlement. What a clumsy man. What a clown act. Stay where UR, Newt. I’ve got 45 minutes of material just for you.
Osama. Obama. Nobama. Yesbama. OuiBama. AliBama. Alibaba and the forty thieves.
That’s who Osama Bin Laden is, you know. He’s Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. That’s what was triggered the comfortable fear in our subconscious and what Bush used to paint the enemy. That cartoon caused the Iraq War.
The consequences of the Iraq War will now rear their ugly heads during Obama’s first year. A shock awaits us. We fought and died to set our worst enemy in power. We lost the Iraq War, but only because Bush is wrong way Harrigan, who scored a touchdown for the opposing team, and lost the game. It’s as if we fought with the Japanese after Pearl Harbor. Seriously. You’ll see them implode in a sectarian free for all.
The Kurds. that’s the wild card. they dont trust. they dont believe a word…. They aren’t about to reliquish control over their gas fields, nor allow any shia/sunni army into their leibensraum (living space). If we deploy anywhere with a smaller force, it should be interjected between Kurdistan and the Sunni/Shia Army. (Is that anything like the Sushi Army?)
SUSHI is an acronym for the SUNNI SHIA ARMY Sushi is best served with Rice.
Now let’s grade Wooten: The last paragraph. Is there anything worse than a someone playing doctor on a TV? Yes, someone playing doctor on a PC. Oh? they’ve identified a “set of mutations” that may have caused the disease 2 progress? Do you realize that you set back bio-physics 300 years with that sentence? Dont go there. Dont even try to report about anything remotely resembing a double helix. Worse, you then conclude with non-sequiturs. You claim that health care is expensive with no supporting data, just folklore. The whole passage is such a mess, that I speet on it!
Politics has a place, but it’s not our whole life? That’s what people say when they’re about to disown their behavior. That wasn’t me. I’m a different person. I have a separate life, and I was only acting like I thought I was supposed to act, which was modeled upon a far-right composite of evangelical group think and what Rushannity prompted me to say.
Jim Wooten, you are going to have to ban me from your blog in order to repair your credibility. You cant spill poison for two years and then say, “Oh well, what’ll they think of next, ahule”.
I wont let you. You’re bigger and better than that. You opened this blog a few years ago with this philosophy: “I think that a blog can be used to advance the discussion”. Naturally, you are supposed to “stir the pot” You should present extreme views to elicit the passions that make for entertaining debate. However you forgot one critical thing about this media (blog). It’s uniquely autonomous. The average IQ of commenters is the average IQ. there is no law of personal respect for others. It’s like graffiti writers in restroom stalls who become a devil for other readers who will occasion the comment. (and drawing. and BTW, graffiti picassos: The peeny doesnt have arms and legs or hands and feet.) morons.
Most of your satirical passages are completely lost on 90 percent of your readers. You only succeeded in creating the cyberspace equivalence of mob think, vigilante banter, and thug rule. I have ten years of blogging experience as a troll assassin. I am John Wilkes Bluetooth, (have mouse, will click). my motto is “Sic Semper Trollanus”.
but you knew all that.
By Tom Becker
November 7, 2008 11:34 AM | Link to this
The odds of getting robbed at home are small. The odds of getting locked out of your burglar proof castle are 100 percent. Then what? If a burglar cant get in, neither can you, moron