Ward Seven residents told how to 'think like a thief'

Date: 9/15/2010

Sept. 15, 2010

By G. Michael Dobbs

Managing Editor

HOLYOKE -- Residents at the Ward Seven crime watch meeting last week reported there have been break-ins in the neighborhood -- particularly through basement windows -- and Lt. Randy Meade of the Hampden County Sheriff's Department offered some advice: make your home less desirable to potential thieves.

"If you put anything, any obstacle in their way, they'll go somewhere else," he told the approximately 50 people gathered at White Elementary School.

The crime map maintained by the Holyoke Police department on its Web site, www.holyokepd.org, showed one recent breaking and entering in the ward.

Meade said national studies have shown if a burglar assesses it would take more than 60 seconds of effort to make it into a home, he or she would go elsewhere.

The key, he said, is to make a home look basically the same whether the residents are home or not. He noted that for residences, the greatest time for burglaries is the day, while for businesses, it is evenings.

Neighbors should try to look out for one another, especially the elderly or the infirmed, he said.

Residents can take a number of steps to secure their homes, Meade said. Those included:

• Install solid wooden or metal doors secured with dead bolt locks.

• Make sure all windows are locked on the first floor of a home.

• Use timers to turns lights on and off several times during the day.

• Keep exterior lights on at night.

• Trim shrubs and bushes to prevent a hiding place for thieves.

• Use fencing, sidewalks and plantings to create a defined walkway to a home's entrance.

"You want to know who is on your property," Meade said, explaining why a defined walkway is important.

• Make sure trees can't be used to access the home through a second floor window.

"Think like a burglar," Meade said. "If it's possible, they will do it."

• Secure basement windows with bars.

• Use an additional lock on garage doors.

Meade said there are about seven radio frequencies used by garage door openers and there are electronic devices readily available that have the ability to search out the frequency.

• Draw curtains to prevent a potential thief from seeing what a homeowner has.

• Leave a radio on during the day.

• Don't record a message on a telephone answering device indicating one is away on vacation.

• Make a list of valuable items in the home and take digital photos of all the rooms to aid in the recovery of items if there is a break-in.