What can you do to ensure your home is safe from intruders? In the present economic climate it seems to us at 1st Defence Locksmiths that we are attending more burglary’s lately. A lot of these burglaries could have been prevented if a few security measures had been implemented beforehand. The first major issue is UPVC door security. Many thieves will choose to enter your home using a effective technique called cylinder snapping or lock snapping. Cylinder snapping can be done in seconds and will work on any upvc door that doesn’t have new upgraded anti snap locks fitted. Anti-snap locks can be fitted to a upvc door fairly simply and the average cost is not that high. This method is by far the most common we see at locksmiths Leeds and locksmiths Wakefield. You can read more on lock snapping in one of our other articles. Wooden door security is also as important and there are too many homes that still don’t  have a British standard 5 lever mortice lock fitted. At locksmiths Leeds we see too many homes fitted with inadequate 3 lever or non-British standard 5 lever locks. The most modern standard of mortice lock is BS3621 2007. Ideally there should be 1 BS3621 sash lock fitted to the door and at least one deadlock fitted as well. Any good locksmith can supply and fit these materials for you.Another good practice is to install good perimeter security like cctv cameras. When you say the word cctv to people they automatically assume that the costs will be huge and there will be big ugly cameras all over there nice house. This is not true anymore as now easy to install sleek wireless systems are available that even the home owner could install themselves for just a few hundred pounds. Security lighting is also a good idea if you have any dark secluded areas, like at the back of the house.We also see a lot of sneak burglaries. This is where the home owner will leave a door open and go upstairs or perhaps into the back of the house and intruders sneak in and steel things such as car keys and handbags. We advise that doors should be locked at all times, unfortunately this is just the age we live in. What’s the point in having the best security and then leaving the doors unlocked? There are also precautions that can be taken when going to bed to stop a sneak thief. Don’t ever leave car keys or house keys on a side table near a letterbox it’s amazing what contraptions people will make to hook keys through letterboxes, the same applies to keys been left on a key hook  near the letterbox.

We have written this article not to scare people about burglary but to make people aware that it does happen probably a lot more than they think but by taking a few precautions you can dramatically decrease the chances of it happening to you. For some more useful security tips vist West Yorkshire police door and window security advice.