I know that security is a bit of a show and its really more of a deterant, but I was wondering realistically how I could prevent someone breaking and entering a small-ish American home? What is actually effective?
As a locksmith, I can tell you what I tell my paranoid customers. Buying the greatest lock in the world doesn’t do shit if you still have first floor windows.
I always thought that was funny. Same with cheap, stick-built apartments with only the wood studs and two layers of drywall between them, the hallway, and other units, but tenants massively fortifying only the door.
I always wondered why we don’t read about more robberies like that. In a stick built home, the wall is a weak point. With a modern battery powered reciprocating saw, it would take less than a minute even on a standard external wall
I’ve heard of that happening in context of thieves breaking into stores. Never heard of it used for home robbery
I had my windows replaced … Last year, I think? That detail doesn’t really matter.
I always knew that normal windows negate any attempt at security, but it was still unnerving to visually confirm that they are easily removed, fragile barriers filling what are just holes in my wall.
Build a moat.
It’s not impenetrable, but let’s be honest, who’s crazy enough to break into the house with a moat?
Own a musket for home defense, since that’s what the founding fathers intended. Four ruffians break into my house. “What the devil?” As I grab my powdered wig and Kentucky rifle. Blow a golf ball sized hole through the first man, he’s dead on the spot. Draw my pistol on the second man, miss him entirely because it’s smoothbore and nails the neighbors dog. I have to resort to the cannon mounted at the top of the stairs loaded with grape shot, “Tally ho lads” the grape shot shreds two men in the blast, the sound and extra shrapnel set off car alarms. Fix bayonet and charge the last terrified rapscallion. He Bleeds out waiting on the police to arrive since triangular bayonet wounds are impossible to stitch up. Just as the founding fathers intended.
Don’t forget about your French neighbors who have been looking to get one over on those ruffians.
Pirates. You’ve just escalated things a degree.
No. They normally operated on open waters. You have to go back to medieval armies.
Vikings. Cold pirates.
All right I’ll give you a Vikings for that.
I mean, building a moat does tell that you probably are rich enough to either pay someone to come over and do all that, or buy/rent a machine to dig & fill it, or are well-off that you have enough free time & energy to dig it without a machine… (might also need something to line the moat with so that the water isn’t just sucked up by the soil)
On the other hand, if someone dug up a moat around a whole house with a shovel all by themselves, it’d probably be wiser not to mess with them…
It also tells that you’re likely to have a vat of boiling oil dumped on you when attempting to breach the walls.
Not really much, tbh.
Decent quality door locks
Clear line of sight from the street to likely entry points
Loud alarms so if they do break in they’re not likely to stay longIf someone wants to get into a house, there isn’t much you can do to stop them unless you’re rich and can afford exotic shit like bullet proof glass windows and thick metal reinforced doors.
All to can really do is discourage crimes of opportunity by making them seem like bad opportunities.Alligators.
This is the only answer that makes sense.
Home Alone has some solid ideas
The critical question is “who?”.
Most break-ins are targets of opportunity. Given that you can’t change to a less risky neighborhood, you could have no outward signs of profitability, no easy/quiet entrance, signs of people around, lights, cameras. And remember, they’re not coming in the front door: they’re looking for an Inconspicuous, weak point. You just need to be less of a target of opportunity than your neighbors.
Someone specifically targetting you will be much harder. Someone with skills will be much harder. At the extreme, no consumer lock is safe against lock picking and no consumer door is safe against police battering ram.
I have a side door with a broken jamb, and speculate that someone kicked it in at some point (before I moved here). One of the first things I did upon moving in, was add long screws to the latch and hinges so it’s anchored in the nearest joist rather than simply the jamb. Supposedly that makes it much more difficult to kick in - someone might give up when it is taking too much time and they are creating noise that could attract attention. I also have a light and a doorbell cam, so they would be visible and on camera doing it. And a dog
At one point I came across an article recommending steel supports behind the jamb, and would really like to do that when I replace the door. It looks like a normal door but the jam is no longer a weak point. Unfortunately no one seems to know what I’m talking about though
I have solid wood doors to enter my home, the front door doesn’t even have a peephole on it. If somebody wants in their coming through a window. U could put bars on ur windows, then the door returns as the weak point. If ur really worried u could step up and put a steel fire door in (like shops are required to have for fire safety) and one of those properly installed will make ur walls the weak point. At that point you probably should question if ur better off in an underground fort lol.
3" door screws and a good lock.
Also AR15, if you legally/mentally can. Last line of defense, but without it the last line is the door/windows.
Lights, cameras, door armor kit, decent locks, and detergents near windows (bars work, but so does planting a rose bush under the windows. Lastly dogs that bark when one near your doors.
This will.help a lot. Statistically the best impact is a dog or two.
You can go hardest by adding electronic security shutters and a serious storm door over every exterior door…
Very general feedback. I’ve been slowly doing all of the above for years. Have it all except shutters (no need, windows too high) and storm doors.
But if they get through the door armor, security camera alarms and pitbulls ill have plenty of time to grab my shotgun.
God help them if they hurt my pitbulls.
It depends on whether your adversary is motivated and equipped, your resources, and what visibility you would like to permit.
Let’s suppose you have a poorly equipped adversary, a couple thousand to spend, and you want it to be invisible.
When a door is bashed, the wooden jamb breaks at the lock. So you could go bash resistant device, I believe there are inserts that make bashing significantly harder. Or you can go with a steel door and steel jamb.
For windows, a sheet of polycarbonate glued to the outside should make them resistant to rocks and small arms fire. You should be able to break the glass and kick out the polycarbonate in the event of a house fire.
Check your slider door that it can’t be levereged upward and removed while shut.
Shotgun. Single best thing you can have.
Shotgun. Single best thing you can have.
Just make sure to stand guard at the front of your home all night every night with your shotgun so that anyone considering breaking and entering knows that you have a shotgun.
That doesn’t prevent breaking and entering. It deals with someone who has already done so.
Which is clearly the context of the post.
No, then the post would be “how do I deal with someone who has forcibly entered my home?”
The answer to this post would be strong fencing, doors, and windows and any other entry points to the home.
We don’t have to argue about the intent of the title my friend, OP provided a link in the body that makes it very clear the context of their question.
You’re suggesting that OP shotgun ICE agents? You think that is going to go well for them when a lady was just shot in the face for tapping one with her car?
I’m suggesting that when a fascist kill squad breaks into your home that you are both legally and morally justified to defend yourself.
I agree with you, but if it gets to that point OP is dead. He might get one or two of them but they definitely are not going to de-escalate if he shoots at them. Which is why a better suggestion would be to reinforce your home so that it is difficult enough for them to enter that they move on to a softer target.
Window bars
Given unlimited time for whoever to break in undisturbed, nothing is secure.
The relevant measure is how quickly someone could break in, without preparation and then with. That’s kind of how they rate safes.
If you’re not Maduro and the goal is just to get away before they’re in, people have mentioned some good options to slow whoever down (alongside the silly suggestions). I’d also add trying to look unprepared, so they don’t come prepared for more than a door or window themselves, and having a non-obvious escape route to use in those critical seconds.
Of course, if it’s an authority, after you’ve run away you’re down a small-ish house.
Having a house with windows already 4 - 6 feet off the ground, security bushes around the whole house, metal shutters for first floor windows, and as many bars or a brace for the doors.
Here’s the issue: your question is mechanical in nature and relatively vague. If the goal is to prevent someone from entering a home, there are many measures one could take. However, I do not believe that is what you mean. What you are actually asking is what to do once someone has already broken into your home. Unfortunately, the answer to that is simple: a 12-gauge shotgun. I understand that many people on this platform dislike firearms. I do not particularly like them either. However, if we are discussing this purely from a mechanical and practical standpoint, the most effective option for home defense is a 12-gauge shotgun. I mean that literally. It is the most reliable means of immediately stopping an intrusion from progressing further into the home. Everything else, moats, gates, high-powered security systems, armed guards, or a medieval motte-and-bailey setup, is either wildly impractical or financially inaccessible to most people. At that point, the question is no longer “How do you physically prevent entry?” It becomes “How do you stop an intruder once entry has already occurred?” That question has already been answered. A 12-gauge shotgun.
Can’t break in if they can’t find your house. Hide it!
See, this is what the real targets do. Bin Laden lasted a whole decade with most of the population of the world’s hyperpower personally wanting to kill him, because it wasn’t clear where to break into.
