Burglary alert

The image attached featured on a 1950s crime prevention poster. The message today remains the same.

Last year, September and October saw an increase in burglary figures across the Rochdale North area and this may possibly coincide with the time of year, people heading back to work, children returning to school, leaving homes unoccupied in the day time, more hours of darkness. Sometimes small insecurities can make homes an easy target for burglars.

Officers from the Rochdale North team in the coming weeks will be commencing a Burglary Initiative to ensure there is no repeat this year. Details of this operation will be announced in due course.

In the meantime you can adopt some of the following tips to help reduce the chances of your home becoming a target:

• Always make sure all windows and doors are closed and locked when leaving your home
• Do not leave spare keys near or in view of windows or doors. Keep them out of sight
• Prepare in case the emergency services need to find you quickly – step outside your home tonight when it’s dark and see if your house number is visible from the road
• Make potential thieves feel exposed when they approach the front of your property – low hedges and low fencing (or transparent high fences) will help do this, as will outside lighting
• Always look out for your neighbours when you are at home – report anything suspicious via the police non-emergency number 101
• You can convince any potential burglar that you are at home by having plug-in timer controls for lamps. Don’t just have the hall light switched on when you’re not in. Have the lights switching themselves on in the bedroom, kitchen, lounge, and even the bathroom
• A plug-in-timer for the radio would make it sound as if someone was home. Tune the radio to a station which has more talking than music
• Arrange for your curtains to be closed in your absence by giving a trusted neighbour a key. Most neighbours wouldn’t mind. You can be a good neighbour, return the favour and do the same for them. If curtains are not going to be drawn while you are out, use timer switches on low table lamps around the room, instead of the main ceiling light. Set the lighting timers to come on when it goes dark, especially if you tend to be late home in winter.
• Ultraviolet marking pens are available in all good stationers and security shops, and cost as little as £1. These are designed for writing on your ornaments and electrical goods in an ink that is invisible to the eye under normal light. All police stations in the country have portable lights that clearly illuminate the writing on such possessions. By printing your postcode following by the house number or first three letters of your official house name, it is possible to trace an owner from anywhere in the country. Always mark your items underneath as the postcode can be slightly visible on non-porous surfaces. Try to renew every twelve months.

Prevention is better than cure – taking sensible precautions to improve your quality of life and not compromising it, will dramatically reduce the chances of you being attacked. Crime prevention, in a way, is a type of insurance. You hope you’ll never need it, but you want to be prepared in case it does happen.

If you take practical steps in preventing crime you reduce your fear of crime and improve the quality of your life.

Be aware. Be safe.