Identity theft: Keep personal and financial items locked up - burglars will take passports, bills ro bak statments and may copy file from your computer.
DO
- Photograph valuables – it helps with insurance claims.
- Keep hedges low – especially at the front of the property.
- Take handbags upstairs at night.
- Keep small valuables like iPods, mobiles, laptops and car keys out of view.
- Chain up garden furniture or wheelie bins that could be used as platforms to reach the first floor.
- Rub out weird chalk signs outside your house – burglars use code to tell criminals about your security.
- If away use an automatic timer to switch lights and radios on and off.
- If away ask a neighbour to push post through your letterbox.
- Cancel deliveries a least a week before you go away.
- If you book a taxi to the airport, order it to the street rather than the house and don’t order the return taxi in advance.
- Write appointments on a calendar – a burglar may return when he knows you are out.
- Label keys
- Rely on your dog, they’re anyone’s friend for a steak.
- Leave the key inside the door – it can be turned from the outside by a magnet.
- Leave packaging from expensive goods by the dustbin – it advertises what is inside.
- Close curtains – it’s a giveaway that you are away.
- Put your full name and address on luggage labels.
- Resist the temptation to post a selfie from the airport or advertise where you are on location tracking apps.
- Wait until you get home to upload your holiday snaps.
