Home security when holidaying: Simple steps to help prevent your house being targeted by thieves

If you’re planning to head off these holidays, taking a few simple and affordable measures to secure your home before you hit the road could protect it from being targeted by opportunistic thieves while you’re away.

To help prevent people from falling victim to break-and-enters, police are urging the community to be vigilant if they leave their homes vacant this summer.

Lake Illawarra Police District Crime Prevention Unit team leader Sergeant Ben Walsh said most offenders looked for easy targets.

“Break-and-enter and stealing incidents can have a serious impact on those families and individuals and it’s not always just a financial cost but those people feel vulnerable after those incidents,” he said.

“So we just need to make it as hard as we can for those thieves out there, to reduce their opportunities.

“What we’re asking for is for people to consider some simple strategies to try and prevent that type of crime.”

Sometimes the most effective solution is the most obvious.

“It’s simple things like checking all windows, doors, gates, sheds and garages are locked and secured,” Sgt Walsh said.

“Probably the majority of our offences relate to people leaving things unlocked.”

He said this was also often the case with motor vehicle theft, with the two crimes going hand-in-hand as thieves gained entry into homes to steal cars and broke into vehicles to access homes.

“Don’t leave garage remote controls in vehicles parked outside your address; we do see a lot of that,” he said.

“They’ll go around trying car doors and if it’s got a remote they’ll hit the remote on the garage door.”

If you’re going to be away on holiday, particularly for an extended time, Sgt Walsh said it was important for the house to still appear occupied.

“Making sure you get a neighbour to park a car in your driveway and make it look like someone’s home, collect your bins, don’t leave them out on the side of the road,” he said.

“Also, making sure that we redivert our mail if we’re going away long term.”

Some light gardening could also go a long way, with overgrown lawns a possible indicator that no-one is home.

And trimming back trees and shrubs that may obscure the view of entry points also helps prevent break-ins from going unnoticed by others in the community.

Technology such as sensor lights can also give the illusion of occupancy, and alarm systems and visible security cameras can be both a deterrent for thieves and assistance to authorities.

“It does help identify offenders in that space via clothing or other likes,” Sgt Walsh said. “So it helps in our prosecution side of things.”

And while you might be excited to share images from your trip, it may be wise to wait to post until you’re back home.

“Don’t advertise you are going on holidays,” Sgt Walsh said. “A lot of our crooks are also using social media.”

Although these strategies help reduce the risk of being a target, there is never a guarantee.

So keeping records or labelling the belongings your leave behind could help retrieve them in the event of a robbery.

“Record serial numbers of large items and take photographs of jewellery because that really helps in relation to identification,” Sgt Walsh said.

“We come across a lot of property that’s handed in or recovered during search warrants, and a lot of the time we cannot link that to an owner even though we reasonably suspect that the items are stolen. It is very hard.”

And if you see something, make sure to report it through the proper channels.

“We quite often see a lot of community using their local social media pages to put up images on those sites but they must be aware that we are not monitoring all those local community pages,” Sgt Walsh said.

“We need to make sure that if you see suspicious activity, ring 131 444, our police assistance line, or if you’ve got information, ring Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.”