As the nights draw in, have you done enough to secure your home?

This Sunday – 29^th October – the clocks go back, giving us an hour longer in bed, but darker evenings. This might be a blessing for many of us (yes, I would rather get up at 6am than 5am, thanks very much), but the darker evenings can also be a blessing for burglars. I learnt this the hard way at this time of year two years ago – between Halloween and Guy Fawkes night – when my parents’ house was burgled while they were away for a couple of days. The combination of noisy fireworks – which drowned out the sound of burglar alarms – and trick or treaters (which meant that strange cars went unnoticed) meant that they had an easy job on their hands. The early darkness also means that more homes are left empty while it’s dark outside, as people come home from work after dark.

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