[Sherrycanon]

I was just reading through an interesting blog ( http://protectionplus.ca/blog/inside...-of-a-burglar/ ) that gave some insights on what it would be like inside the mind of a burglar. Some of the points mentioned in the blog seemed pretty obvious. I always buy timed lights whenever I leave the house for a couple of days. It will only work if you are gone for about 2 to 3 days though. What do you guys do to make your house look occupied when you go on vacation.

[Nkc]

I wonder how high the correlation is between maintenance (cable, internet, phone, etc) visits and break ins.

[Mark M]

Originally Posted by Nkc

I wonder how high the correlation is between maintenance (cable, internet, phone, etc) visits and break ins.

Agreed. I'm always leery of any maintenance person that comes to the home. I can imagine them sitting around d the bar sharing stories.

Perhaps I'm too cautious but my spidy sense has played well for me so far in life.

[c1pher]

I always imagine the service technician is paid some sort of finder's fee by his friend who will later come to the house to pay it a visit while you're gone. I get suspicious when they start asking a bunch of personal questions, essentially trying to chat me up. I've actually been asked the question "do you have to travel a lot for your job".

[jaye944]

you need a timer with a "random" feature,

back home, I had a few plug in's for the lights, you do a quick double on-off
and when it gets to dusk the lights come on and off at random AND for a random time period

the doohickey was only like £20 all things considered fairly cheap for some secuirty

Originally Posted by Sherrycanon

I was just reading through an interesting blog ( http://protectionplus.ca/blog/inside...-of-a-burglar/ ) that gave some insights on what it would be like inside the mind of a burglar. Some of the points mentioned in the blog seemed pretty obvious. I always buy timed lights whenever I leave the house for a couple of days. It will only work if you are gone for about 2 to 3 days though. What do you guys do to make your house look occupied when you go on vacation.

[jaye944]

yeah found it

[ciaranob]

Wonder if anyone has written an Alexa script to tell the Hue lights to come on randomly and for random lengths for a set away period - seems like an obvious solution? Actually can't remember off the cuff but the Hue lights app has auto on/off settings, not sure if random lengths though? Obviously can mess with them remotely but don't need to be mucking with them when away and the auto settings would be best.