Unhappy surprise

[Deleted member 33385]

As I said, it's at home now. Garage is being demolished and I have vacated it. Where I'm improving security is on a cupboard to the front of my hiuse

Does it have a wooden door? Two of my neighbours were burgled last year and they both had great locks, on wooden doors - the burglars simply bent the door edge and locks away from the door frames, by applying horizontal leverage at the side of the doors. This is a quick and relatively quiet burglar entry method - minus a couple of moderately loud thumps, as they jam the crowbar as deeply as possible in between the door frame and door. So I attached a thick steel brace to the inside my wooden door, at the level of the lock to prevent it bending. A few nights later, I heard a burglar trying to get in... he first tried bending the door with his crowbar, but I had also installed a second deadlock between the bottom of the door and the first deadlock (Police recommendation) - it's very hard for one burglar to bend the door away from two locks, if they're not close to each other. I could hear the burglar swearing and kicking at my door, then yelling loudly because he'd hurt his foot. He limped away disappointed and angry. I chuckled and went back to sleep.

Myself and my neighbours have had UPVC doors with multi-point locking installed - mind you, burglars burn those. And you have to get the right anti-snapping locks for UPVC doors, some are rubbish and an even quieter job to defeat - less than a minute. There's even a widely available Avocet opening tool, I avoid Avocet locks for that reason - a few seconds they're in. If you leave too much of the lock barrel exposed for the lock to be snapped with molegrips, that's also an issue, and if you have soft metal handles covering the barrel - those are easily bent away so that molegrips can be used to twist and snap the lock, and a flat screwdriver inserted to turn it.

It's a great time for burglars - often the Police won't even attend. A very large proportion of burglaries are unsolved, in every postcode. At this time of year, burglars want whatever goodies Santa and Rudolph illegally smuggled into the country, violating all international airspace laws.

 

[UrbanPuma]

Yep, a garage door with 4 separate 5 lever locks in all four corners would be a b*****rd to get past, take too long and be very noisy business indeed on a thin garage door - it'd be like beating a large drum. They'd need two thieves with large crowbars (preferably four), to have any hope of a quick and dirty theft. Or use two car jacks at either side of the door... or they could drill hooks into the door and pull the door out of the locks using a stolen Range Rover, or tunnel up through the floor, but I think my imagination might be running slightly wild at this point. They could escape in minis.

You sound very knowledgeable regarding pulling off heists lol

 

[Deleted member 33385]

You sound very knowledgeable regarding pulling off heists lol

You've got to think like one to thwart one - just look at any security solution and think of how you'd beat it, cinematically!

 

[UrbanPuma]

You've got to think like one to thwart one - just look at any security solution and think of how you'd beat it, cinematically!

True lol