How to protect your home from burglars

How secure is your house? Most of us like to think our belongings are safe and go to some steps to secure our properties but burglars are still making a living from pilfering other people's belongings. So, how can you make sure they don't go for your home?

If you want your house to be truly safe from burglars your best bet would be to move to Scotland. Data from Moneysupermarket.com has found that people living in Dumfries and Lochee make the fewest insurance claims for burglary. Felixstowe in Suffolk and Bangor in Wales are also low on the burglary hit list.

However, if you live in East London you should go and check on your things. Dagenham is the country's top location for burglary claims, with 55 incidents per 1,000 policies, followed by Gants Hill in London, Chorlton-cum-Hardy in Manchester and Intake in South Yorkshire.

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"Our annual Burglary Claims Tracker reveals the nation's burglary claim hotspots, and once again London and Greater London postcodes dominate," says Kevin Pratt, home insurance expert at MoneySuperMarket.com.

"Burglars often target urban areas where there's more hustle and bustle and so less risk of being caught, but not surprisingly they also follow the money, which is why affluent areas such as Teddington and Temple Newsam in West Yorkshire appear in the top 20 claims hotspots."

Top tips to deter burglars

No matter where you live there are steps you can take to reduce the chance of being burgled. Here are five tips:

Don't give them a key

More than 6,000 burglaries last year did not involve a break-in. Thieves simply used a key that the owner had 'hidden'. Research from LV= found that an astonishing 29 per cent of us leave a spare key outside our property somewhere.

Burglars are often also able to reach a key through a window or letterbox, so keep your keys out of sight and in your house.

Also if you lose your house keys, or they are stolen, along with information about your address, get your locks changed.

Set up timers for lights

Have a couple of lights in your home set to switch on with timers when you are out. This way burglars can't be sure the property is empty, which makes them far less likely to risk it.

Get an alarm

Burglar alarms are a very effective deterrent. Back in 2011 reformed burglar Leon Reid published a checklist of tips on how to avoid being burgled. Despite breaking into over 70 homes he said he would never go near a home with a burglar alarm box, as the risk was too high.

So, even if you can't afford a burglar alarm consider getting a fake alarm box.

Lay pebbles or shingle

Another tip from Leon is to have a pebble or gravel drive or shingled patio. Anything that would make approaching your home noisy and likely to attract attention.

For the same reason motion activated lighting is a good idea.

Don't help them

Make sure you secure ladders and lock them so burglars can't use them to gain access to your property. For the same reason fit a good lock on your shed or garage so thieves can't break in and use your own tools to get into your house.

Also think about garden ornaments. I was burgled two years ago and the thief used a stone snail that was in my garden to smash his way through the window. Needless to say I don't have any heavy ornaments in the garden anymore.