Many expensive gifts are exchanged around Christmas, Valentine’s day and Mother’s Day – so how do you ensure that they are suitably protected from opportunistic thieves?
Whilst crime rates have been falling over the past 20 years, there are still around 2 in every 100 households who fall victim to domestic burglary. And with 70% of these thieves gaining entry through a door, it’s worth considering how to better protect some of your more expensive and precious gifts such as jewellery, watches and laptops.
In our latest blog post, we take a look at the most commonly stolen items from homes and how you can ensure your valuables are safe.
Items Most Commonly Stolen from Homes
Small items that can be easily pocketed or carried out by hand or in a bag are the items most likely to be stolen from a domestic property during a burglary.
- Jewellery – 39%
- Purse/ Wallet/ Money/ Cards – 29%
- TV – 22%
- Laptop/ Computer – 20%
- Watch – 19%
- Mobile phone – 19%
- Games console/ video games/ controller – 14%
- Camera – 12%
- Clothes – 11%
- Tools – 11%
Ways to Protect your Valuables at Home
Given the statistics above, there are a number of ways you can increase the security of your home and protect these expensive items.
Replace door locks – make sure your door locks have the BSI stamp on them and that the cylinder is anti-snap.
Lock doors – lock external doors even when you are in the property to avoid opportunistic thieves entering.
Fit a chain or latch – so that you can safely but only partially open a door to check who is there and avoid someone forcing their way in.
Keep valuables away from windows – stop preying eyes from spotting your valuables and being enticed to enter your property.
Consider window grilles – allow ground floor windows to be open for ventilation but have security grilles for peace of mind that they can’t be used as an entry point.
Purchase a Safe – to hide away valuables so they cannot be accessed or removed from your home.
Protecting Your Valuables with a Safe
Every step taken to increase the security of the external entry points of a property is always worth doing but investing in a safe within your home is perhaps the best way to prevent a determined burglar from finding or accessing your treasured possessions.
There are many different types of domestic safes on the market. Some are very small and can hold a small amount of jewellery or money and some are larger ones suitable for documents. Both types may be fire rated, offering a certain level of protection against fire damage.
The key to stop your safe being yet another item that an intruder can walk off with, is being able to attach it to your property, either a wall, a floor or within a cupboard. In fact, there are even floor safes that are designed to be concealed within the floor.
How to Choose a Safe
So how do you pick a small or jewellery safe that is right for your personal valuables? Here are some things to think about:
- Size – think about how much you want to store away in the safe. Do you have a large amount of jewellery that is of sentimental value or is extremely valuable? For example, the Chubb Zeta jewellery safe comes in 5 different sizes.
- Value of your items – what is the insurance value of the items you want to secure in the safe? Your insurance may stipulate a certain ‘cash rating’. For example, some of our bespoke and luxury safes can have a rating of between £100,000 – £1 million for jewellery.
- Securing it to your property – where will you place the safe? Can it be attached to a floor or wall for additional security?
- Locking mechanism – do you want to open your safe with a key, or with a personal pin number so that only you can access it?
For a more in depth look at choosing a safe, see our blog on 6 things to consider when buying a safe.
Purchasing a Domestic Safe Through Thornhill Security
Our team at Thornhill have over 50 years’ experience in selling and installing safes and are members of the Master Locksmith Association. We are dedicated to helping you find the right security measure and safe that meets your requirements.
To discuss your needs please call us on 0117 967 4994 or contact us here.