Burlingame is Seeing Home Break-ins. Here are Some Ideas to Help Prevent You as the Next Target.

The City of Burlingame

It appears that the City of Burlingame is having a spat of house break-ins and the Police are working hard at finding the culprit.  Burlingame has a low crime rate so it’s unusual to hear about more than one or two break-ins.  This time there have been about 10 of them and the last ones are in a neighborhood close to 101 making it easy for the robber to make his get away.

What should you do to help secure your home and belongings?

1. Lock all doors and windows when you are not at home.  In fact, keep the doors locked even if you are home, just as a safe precaution.
2. It’s easy to engrave your ID, driver’s licence is a good one, on your most valuable items.  This makes it hard for them to be sold quickly.
3. Itemize your household. It’s a good idea to do this just for fire safety, but even more so for robbery.
4. Get your camera out and take pictures of everything of value and upload those pictures to one of the many websites there for pictures.
5. Keep your jewelry hidden if it’s valuable.  Or, buy a small safe and store your jewelry in it.
6. Write down your serial numbers for your
   televisions, iPods, computers, and sound equipment and put that list in
   a safe place.  Just in case. Don’t forget to include a picture of
   your camera, even if you have to use one from the internet to show what
   it is.
7. Make sure you have deadbolt locks in place on all doors.  If you bought your house and did not change the locks, now is a good time to do it.  Call a locksmith to do it.  It’s quick and easy to do and you can key all locks with one key making life easier, and safer.

Get to know your neighbors.  Do you know who lives next door to you?  If not, introduce yourself and trade phone numbers.  If that neighbor is home during the day, you are fortunate as they can become the eyes and ears for the neighborhood!  But more important, we have lost a feeling of a neighborhood today where we can take a walk down the street and say hello to our neighbors on a first name basis.  Why not start this in your neighborhood?  It could help keep your neighborhood safe and begin some new friendships!

Finally, if you see something that doesn’t look right, call the police.  Get a description of the person, their car and license, if possible.  Don’t put yourself into harm’s way, but be a good citizen and pay attention to details.  They could matter.