Okkkkkk... I have to jump in on this one.
We've lived here for 12 years and it's been mostly crime free. Last summer we had two day time hits just around the corner from us. Then we recently had 2 burglaries in our laps! This is a very quiet neighborhood. The last burglary was only ONE HOUSE away! The next door neighbor also found her back gates open and her front door knob was loosened to the point of falling off. The police feel her barking dogs scared the thug off so they moved to the next house. They cleaned that neighbor out... guns/passport... tools...jewelry .. even copped his vintage Mercedes and wrecked it. He's elderly, lives alone, and he was only gone ONE NIGHT. We felt/feel sooo bad for him.
With the increase of drug abuse and easily purchased highly addictive street drugs times are a changing. This isn't paranoia speaking.. I worked in a local ER for years and I watched the waves of patients go from your typical weekend (fairly amusing) drunks getting a little too rowdy and punching each other out to vicious completely crazed Meth/Heroin addicts hauled (in wearing multiple restraints) screaming that they will kill you and your family when they see you again. It was unnerving to say the least.
It is VERY OBVIOUS when we are gone as we park our TT and tow vehicle out in front of our place. We had an out of state family reunion we had to attend just 2 weeks after our neighborhood was actively getting hit and nothing had been solved - no one had been caught. We did not feel good about leaving at all. So, we did some research and purchased a very affordable home security system that we installed ourselves. (Simpli-Safe). We got it set up. (easy job).. tested it for 3 days, and sent the necessary paperwork to the Sherriff's office, fire dept etc. We left here knowing that we had done ALL we could do to protect our home. We don't have a cache of super valuable things.. but once you've been burglarized you lose your sense of security in your home. There's NO WAY to put a price on that.
I'll just say this (and I'm not trying to stir up any battles). EVERY PERSON I KNOW who's EVER been burglarized puts in a security system A-F-T-E-R they've been cleaned out by some low life thug. We decided to get proactive, and put in a system before anything happened. We took 4 RV vacations this summer and it was a huge sense of relief knowing that odds were very high that if someone broke in they would be caught, and at the very least scared off when the 102 decibel "screamer" siren went off that we put in the highest peak of the exterior roof. We paid a little extra for heat sensors in the house in 3 strategic places. They say a pro-burgler will get in if they want in, but if they manage to make it past the door/window sensors they will have to be walking on the ceiling to avoid the rest of the system. Also, it's not run off the phone line (so cutting it is useless). It's all set up on wireless, with batteries that last 4 days in the event of a huge power failure.
Best money we've spent. We leave feeling good, and not looking over our shoulders worrying. Being proactive does not = paranoid. It just means your paying attention.
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