Stop thief!

A look inside a burglar's mind and how it might help protect your property. 

Burglary is a horrid, invasive crime that can do as much damage psychologically as it can materially, often leaving victims traumatised. Sadly it’s a very common problem, with around 30,000 reported burglaries in the UK each month. The good news is, those numbers are falling, down from around 40,000 ten years ago. The police, though, have a very poor track record of dealing with domestic burglary, so your best bet is to avoid being burgled altogether.

At this point, instead of going through the usual boring checklist of locks, lights, alarms, cameras and security markings – things most of us already know about - we thought it might be more illuminating to take a look at how a burglar thinks and how we might use that information to help you avoid becoming one of their victims.

Dr Claire Nee, a forensic psychologist from the University of Portsmouth, conducted some experiments with 55 convicted burglars, getting them to take her through a virtual, computer simulated burglary. The results are fascinating and give some real insight into a burglar’s mind.

According to her research, burglars are very rarely opportunistic, preferring to scope out a location/property beforehand. Dr Nee says,

“Very few burglars are what we would call properly impulsive or indiscriminate, which is what we normally mean by opportunistic. The majority of burglars have a lot of knowledge in their heads; we call them cognitive schemers. They have lots of ‘recipes’ about how to commit different burglaries. They pick up the cues of vulnerable areas during their everyday activities. They’re constantly scanning.

“They’ll be thinking ‘Oh, that looks quiet down that road – it might be a good place for the day time’ or ‘I might come back here in the evening’. They’re using things like where the house is positioned on the street, or how many people they can be seen by.”

In what’s known as pre-burglar marking, they will even sometimes mark houses as future targets with everything from chalk symbols to coloured stones and bin stickers.

Another thing many burglars have in common is the desire to avoid coming into contact with homeowners, preferring houses that are obviously empty and are particularly drawn to properties whose occupants are on holiday. There are obvious signs they will look for, such as lights that are permanently off (or on) and mail and newspapers piling up.

The best deterrent is to make it look like someone’s home, using lighting timers etc. Sometimes, burglars will put tape over the door lock. If the owners are home, they’ll have to remove it to open the door. If not, it will stay there. Unfortunately, there’s not much you can do about that. Another trick using a similar principal is placing large stones under the wheels

of your car, which must be removed before the owner can drive off. Their simplest trick of all, though, is to just knock on the door.

That desire to avoid confrontation means burglars also tend to prefer isolated or end of terrace houses and they will very rarely break in through the front. They will look for any entry point that they can work on unobserved, which usually is around the back. You can protect these vulnerable areas with good quality locks and security lighting as well as cutting back any covering bushes and hedges. However, all the alarms and locks in the world are of little use if doors and windows are left open - and a massive 50% of all burglaries happen that way.

Once inside your house, a thief will, typically, head to the furthest point from where they entered and make their way, methodically, back towards it. And they won’t be looking for large items such as flat screen TVs and computers - they’re too awkward and bulky. They also have lots of cables, which take time to disconnect and the longer they stay, the greater the risk they’ll be caught. In fact, your average burglary takes no more than 8 minutes. As a result, what they’re really after are smaller, more valuable items, such as wallets and watches, jewellery, purses, phones, tablets, laptops and identity documents. These are then sold on, at a fraction of their value, to middlemen (fences), rather than on ebay.

Most thieves have a pretty good idea where our typical hiding places are, such as in underwear drawers or under mattresses, or, frighteningly often, in plain view. If you want a better hiding spot, they tend not to bother with Kitchens and bathrooms. They also get an unexpected attack of morality when it comes to children’s rooms, preferring to leave them untouched.

So, the lessons are pretty simple, make sure your home looks occupied at all times and ensure you hide your valuables in some of the less obvious places. And, according to another study carried out by Co-op Insurance, CCTV cameras were the best deterrent, followed by barking dogs, UPVC windows and strong doors and locks. Alarms were, surprisingly, near the bottom of the list. 

If you are thinking of investing in the property market, give us a call at Phillip Arnold Auctions - 020 8799 3880. Or, to see our latest properties visit our website.

Back to News