Does your home have an attached garage accessible via an overhead door? If so, welcome to the club. Millions of homes around the country have the same feature. Attached garages are great. So are overhead doors with automatic garage door openers. But did you know that garage doors play a role in home burglary?
How many of us take our garages for granted? How many of us think nothing of opening the garage door and leaving it open all day? That is not smart. If more people knew how burglars viewed open garage doors, they would be more careful about keeping them closed. Adding a feature like Vivint Smart Home’s Garage Door Control to a home security system would be even better.
Home security notwithstanding, here are the key things every homeowner should know about burglary and garage doors:
1. Open Doors Are an Open Invitation
Not too long ago, police in Irvine, CA were called to a residential neighborhood for a burglary report. Apparently, a woman went out to walk her dog first thing in the morning and left her garage door open. She returned to find a burglar leaving her home with valuables in hand. Unfortunately, her story is not unusual.
Open garage doors represent an open invitation to burglary. There are two issues to consider here:
- Access to the Home – Attached garages offer direct access to the home via a standard entryway door. That means an open garage door invites burglars to check that secondary door. If it is unlocked, which is so often the case, a burglar can simply walk right in.
- Visible Possessions – Garages tend to be filled with all sorts of things including bicycles, tools, and sporting equipment. A burglar taking a quick look through an open garage door can determine pretty quickly if the owner of the home has money. Valuable things in the garage suggest even more valuable things in the house.
Leaving the garage door open, even when someone is home, gives a burglar passing by a reason to stop and take a look. One good look inside the garage could make a home a prime target for future burglary. Burglars are not stupid. They glean a lot of information by looking into open garages.
2. Garage Doors Aren’t Necessarily Secure
Homeowners also need to know that their overhead doors are not necessarily secure, especially if connected to an automatic garage door opener. A skilled burglar can breach most door opening mechanisms with just a coat hanger. More importantly, he can do so in less than a minute.
Nearly all automatic garage door openers have a safety release mechanism. That release mechanism is connected directly to the arm that attaches the door to the motorized track. A quick tug on a release rope separates the arm from the track so that the door can be opened manually.
A burglar using a coat hanger with a hook on the end can quickly fish around until the hook catches the rope. Then he simply pulls, and the job is done. There are ways to prevent this from happening. However, there are different solutions for different types of door opening systems. Figure out what your mechanism looks like and then search for a solution online.
Keep the Door Locked
Perhaps your overhead door isn’t connected to an automatic door opener. You prefer to open and close the door manually. Great. Your garage door has a built-in lock. Use it. Just like you lock the front door when you leave for the day, make sure the garage door is locked whenever it is not open.
A locked overhead door is very difficult to breach due to the nature of most lock designs. You have a central locking mechanism that rotates. Attached to that mechanism are two metal bars that move in opposite directions, sliding through holes in the tracks on both sides of the door frame. This design is the garage door equivalent of a dead bolt. It is very hard to breach.
3. It’s Safe to Assume Burglars Will Try
Homeowners should also know that burglars are not afraid to use the garage as an entry point. In fact, any homeowner taking steps to prevent burglary should just assume burglars will try the garage. Coming up with prevention strategies based on that assumption can only help a homeowner do a better job.
Burglars always look for the easiest point of entry. They want to get in quickly and without drawing attention to their activities. They also want to get out as quickly as possible. If the garage offers the most attractive entry and exit point, that’s the point a burglar will use.
4. Garage Contents Are Not Safe
We often think of home burglary in terms of valuables stolen from the master bedroom. As you may already know, the master bedroom is a prime target because burglars know they can find cash, jewelry, and other valuables in that particular room. But do not underestimate how attractive the garage could be. Garage contents are not safe from burglars, either.
You might be tempted to forget about what is in your garage because you know burglars like small items they can stick in their pockets. That is true most of the time. Yet there is a group of brazen burglars who are not content with jewelry and small amounts of cash. They would rather steal lawnmowers, edge trimmers, hand tools, bikes, and expensive sporting goods.
Consider the typical car guy who has tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of tools stored in the garage. To a burglar with a few minutes and a large van, those tools represent a good payday. Forget going into your house. He has all he needs sitting against the back wall of the garage.
Vivint Smart Home suggests including garage security in one’s home security strategy. Whether through mechanical means or electronic security and surveillance, protecting the garage closes at least one door of opportunity burglars tend to look for.
