What to Do After a Burglary

Experiencing a burglary, whether you’re home when it happens or not, can be a traumatizing event. There are a lot of feelings that come up with being burglarized, like anger, fear, helplessness, frustration and more. The last thing you want to add to the list is confusion of what to do after a break-in.

There are some things you should keep in mind in case your home is broken into. This will help to catch the thieves and, hopefully, recover some of your stolen items. There are also some things you can do to help with burglary prevention.

Here’s what to do after a break-in, as well as what you can do to prevent a burglary.

What to do after a break-in

There are some things you should do immediately after a break-in. The first thing is to call the police and report the crime. Try not to touch anything or disturb the scene too much until the police have had a chance to investigate the scene. The sooner you report the crime, the better chance police have of catching the burglar.

After this step, you should check to see how the burglars got in. For example, are there any broken windows, doors or locks in the home? Is your spare key undisturbed in the location it is usually hidden?

If you can tell how the thief got into your home, it’s important to address the problem right away. You can call a professional locksmith to come do a security evaluation for peace of mind as well.

If you can’t tell how the thief got in, they may have had easy access to your home. There can be a variety of reasons this may have happened, but it’s important not to blame yourself no matter what the reason may be. Even if a door or window was left unlocked and an opportunistic burglar found their way into your home through it, it’s still nobody’s fault but the burglar’s.

Burglary prevention

There are some things you can do after a break-in to prevent it from happening again—or to do right now to prevent it from happening in the first place. Many of these tips have to do with the locks on your doors.

For example, you can install automatic door locks. These are handy devices that automatically lock the deadbolt on your door if it is left unlocked after a set period of time. This will help make sure you don’t have to worry or double-check to make sure the door is locked.

Another good thing to do after a break-in is to change the locks. The locks can be re-keyed, so there’s no need to change the entire handle or deadbolt. A locksmith should be able to provide same-day service for lock re-keying.

Hopefully, you won’t need to worry about what to do after a break-in, but sometimes these things can be unpredictable even with the best prevention methods. If you need locksmith services of any kind, contact Toledo Lock & Key LLC today.

Categorised in: Locksmith

This post was written by Writer