When it comes to the possibility of having my home broken into, I’m actually a little more worried about what would happen if I was there than if I wasn’t. As traumatic as getting burgled is, people have been hurt by burglars who broke in, not realizing someone was home. To prevent home burglary, I use a combination of products, all inexpensive.
How to Prevent Home Burglary
The door jammer
About 20 years ago, I bought a product called a door jammer to keep people out while I’m home. I’ve used it in apartments and houses, even when an electronic security system was present. You just stick it under your front door knob, gently kick it into place, and it “jams” in there so there’s no way to open the front door from the outside. When you want to open the door, it pulls back out very quickly and easily (important in case of a fire), and it’s adjustable so it fits every door knob I’ve ever tried it on.
It collapses down to about two feet in length, so you can even take it along when you travel and use it on hotel room doors for added security (or privacy).
Jammers cost between about $16-75, depending on the brand and where you buy it. This is my jammer, and it’s been perfect. I’ve had it for well over 10 years, and it works just as great as it did on day one.
The dowel stick jamming trick
A wonderfully inexpensive way to make windows and sliding glass doors more of a challenge for intruders is to secure them with dowel sticks. Dowel sticks cost a couple of bucks, maximum – you can find them wherever hardware or gardening items are sold.
- Close your sliding glass doors.
- Drop a dowel stick into the empty track where the shut door would be if it was open. Now you can’t open the door without moving the dowel stick.
It’s that simple. People from the outside will have no luck at all trying to get in that way. Now, you may be thinking this doesn’t stop them from breaking the glass, and that’s true. But burglars break minimal glass so they can get a hand inside and unlock the door. The dowel stick won’t let that work, either – the burglar would have to break enough glass to to step through into your home. That’s a noisy, time-consuming task, and burglars want to be quick and quiet.
What about emergency services?
Would these devices keep emergency services from getting into your home to save your life? Well, most of us keep our front doors locked, and probably deadbolted. If we can’t let emergency services in, they would have to either take the door of its hinges or break it down. Yes, that takes time, but it’s something they do, and they know how to do it quickly.
I doubt the Door Jammer would prevent professionals who are determined to break a door in – something your typical burglar does not want to do. But if it would, they also carry axes and other equipment. Emergency services’ job is to get to you, and people who need rescuing are frequently hard to reach. They know what they’re doing.
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