Skiprr has many good suggestions here, and his point is well taken. However, most of them are applicable to deterring burglary of unoccupied homes, which usually occur during the day or early evening. Indications that folks are home cause most of these guys to move along to find an empty one.Skiprr wrote:Excaliber wrote:I would not suggest going face to face with the subject. I recommend recontacting the PD and asking to speak to a detective. Provide him with the information you uncovered after the original report was written.
In addition, I'd recommend taking a cold, hard, objective look at your property and house. The vast majority of home burglaries are crimes of opportunity, not home invasions. Discounting drug dealers and "known-bad associate" situations, most home invasions target business owners or others who might bring large amounts of cash to their homes.
To help remove yourself as a target of opportunity you'll want to try to put yourself into the mindset of a burglar, and realistically evaluate your home as a target. Perform your evaluation at early morning, midday, and at night. Start from across the street and a few houses away, in both directions; taking photos can help. Look for any and everything that might make your home look attractive or unattractive to a potential burglar.
You said you had no internal or external lights on at the time the event occurred. That might be a great place to start. If a home looks unoccupied, it goes to the top of a burglar's list. Knocking on a door is a (relatively) safe and easy way to ascertain if anybody's home. I'd strongly suggest exterior lighting, particularly motion-activated lighting near your doors. Motion-sensing lighting can do a better, and much cheaper, job of deterring a break-in than can a video camera.
Also, having a light on a timer in a room away from your bedroom but with a prominent window exposure to the street is a sound idea. Set it to turn on and off frequently during the night, at intervals that vary from day to day to keep the pattern looking irregular to anyone who might, say, drive through the neighborhood a few nights in a row. Timers like that go for under $20, and modern CFL lightbulbs can keep the energy usage to a minimum.
Do you have sides of your house that are very dark at night? A side, for example, where there might be one or two windows, but no exterior lighting, and the side of the house is in shadow from the streetlights? That can be an attractive potential access point for a burglar, and is another prime spot for motion-activated lighting. A fenced backyard with no lock on the gate can be appealing because it screens the offender's activities. Likewise, the arrangement of trees and shrubs in your lawn might provide concealment while accessing a window.
Do you have lawn signs and window stickers declaring that the home has a monitored burglar alarm? Are the lawn signs clearly visible to cars passing in front of your house in both directions? Even if you don't have a monitored alarm (as good an idea as it is to have one) you can still obtain signs that make it look as if you do.
You know the old joke about the two guys in a camp at night when a grizzly comes wandering in? One guy stops to put on his shoes, and the other guy asks, "You think you can outrun a bear?" To which the reply: "No, I only need to outrun you."
Point being that you want your home to appear to be the least-likely target on your block. You want it to look like it's occupied. You want it to look like it has an active alarm. If you have an alarm, use it. You want no dark spots at night without motion-sensitive lighting. You want the gate to your backyard locked. You want a padlock on your exterior breaker box. Put the lock-bar on your garage door once you're inside for the day. If you have an attached garage, always lock the adjoining door, day or night. Have an intercom to the front door if you can afford it. Offer no exterior concealment for windows. Don't leave your curtains open during the day so that passersby can look in and decide if you're affluent enough to target for burglary. And the list goes on.
Just like situational awareness is your front-line safety tool when outside your home, for your house it’s the grounds and perimeter that are its front-line safety. The handgun and 870 are a definite, but a little work on the exterior can prevent your home from ever being considered a potential target by a bad guy. Don't make the bear want to chase you.
When someone attempts to open the front door at 11:45PM as in this case, he knows it's very likely that the home is occupied and it's more likely than not he's planning to conduct a home invasion that involves confrontation with occupants at some point. A lighted entryway that would make his actions visible from the street may have some deterrent value, but additional indicators of occupancy won't help much at that point - he's figuring folks are home and can help him find what he wants.
These folks are exceedingly dangerous and the Rem 870 the OP selected as a greeting tool was a good choice.
