Window Bars

[Ystranc]

Although Shetland has a growing population I'm guessing that apart from tourists people know who the bad apples are.

 

[lonewolf]

I suppose, but in this day and age? ye gods!!
we had someone living over the back of us about 2-3 years ago, the next door neighbour went out with her dogs, didn't lock her back door and came back to find her next door neighbour riffling through her stuff to see what he could nick and sell for his next "fix", and this is a rural area!!so it can happen anywhere.

 

[swamp rat]

I agree with lonewolf on this one , I would never trust anyone to the point of leaving my doors open when I go out
and I live with just 7 neighbours on our road all nice people, which is a little bit out of the way as you can see with the pics, but if we had a shtf moment I would not trust them as far as I could throw them
but my thinking is to put the bars up now so they get use to seeing them , so if the shtf they would not think I am
trying to hide something all of a sudden , just the norm for that strange bloke lol
and there are no street lamp where I live so , it does make sense ,well it does to me lol

 

[60North]

I don't disagree with your logic swamp rat, looks like a good set up you have there.
Everyone makes their own decisions based on their own risk assessment.

Lonewolf, I do understand your point of view and whilst there are opportunistic scumbags all over the place in the UK, if any of them come looking around our house, a locked door won't stop them. We are isolated enough that they could just break in through one of our many windows without any neighbours hearing.
If they try it when we are here, if we don't see\hear them coming down the long lane to our house, our dogs will announce their arrival before they step one foot in the door.

Back south we did have a couple of attempted break ins, and I found that each time they hopped over the back fence. After the first time I placed a few decorative trip hazards against the fence, so when they came over again they made such a racket I was out of bed and out the back door just in time to spot them disappear back over the fence.

 

[swamp rat]

I will go along with that 60north "Everyone makes their own decisions based on their own risk assessment."
very true

I guess that is why I think this site is good because of all the different ideas and points of views

 

[Keith]

This thread has made me consider our 'home security'.
On a day to day basis, we never lock our doors. Any of them, even if we are both out. In fact, we have never locked the doors since we moved in a few years back. That's just the way of things here.
However, if shtf, I currently don't even know where the keys are.
So, off the back of this thread, I will be finding the keys, and placing them somewhere near the door.

In which case you are damned lucky no predators have entered your house. I would never risk the safety of my family by leaving doors unlocked.
Keith.

 

[lonewolf]

back in the 50s and even the 60s most people wouldn't lock their doors, things were very different back then, but in the 21st century there are so many scumbags and lowlife's about that I wouldn't not lock my doors wherever I lived, especially if I lived in a more remote area- probably more so because there are less people to see them or hear them breaking in, if the door is unlocked they can just walk in, I see no point in letting them just stroll in and take what they want, that's just being a passive victim.

 

[Ystranc]

Because I hold a firearm certificate I have to use a higher level of passive security then most households in the UK, even though this is a comparatively safe area. I must have 5 lever locks, window locks and two safes. In addition I also have 8 cctv cameras and a PIR boundary that uploads images to the cloud and notifies me by an email/text.
There are usually at least two dogs on the premises which is difficult to approach undetected through a dense "fedge" of briar rose, black thorn spikey brash etc.
We have a river looping around us and a very steep clay bank on the other side. We're hidden by woodland except for two vantage points a long way off. While our house can be seen from the air it doesn't stand out very much compared to others because of the trees. It was the site of an Iron Age hill fort, chosen for its resistance to flooding and inaccessibility.

 

[lonewolf]

thankfully I live in a fairly crime free area, the most we get here over the last few years is the odd domestic.
we had an ATM robbery about 5 years ago, a gang from the Midlands, then the burglary over the back I mentioned-that must be 3 years ago- as far as I know that guy is still "inside" or if he's out he hasn't been back here.
the rest of it is low level stuff, domestics and a bit of Saturday night drunks.

 

[Keith]

Anyone, no matter where they live, if they have not been the victim of a home invasion, then they have been just plain lucky. We have had instances in town where people have left their back door open whilst they hang up the washing. A predator has walked in & the resident has either been badly beaten or they have been murdered. We ourselves have fended of several home invasions. We had our guard dogs shot, our horses shot, items stolen from our yard, & occasions when we were fired upon. People need to learn from other people's experiences before they have to learn from their own. They may not get a second chance if things go the wrong way.
Keith.

 

[lonewolf]

I have never been burgled, nor have any of my friends, a good friend of mine had someone trying to kick in his door at 5AM but the door held, maybe we've all been fortunate because we all lock our windows and doors?

 

[Keith]

I have never been burgled, nor have any of my friends, a good friend of mine had someone trying to kick in his door at 5AM but the door held, maybe we've all been fortunate because we all lock our windows and doors?

Well that is a good thought, you may have indeed had people at your door at night & not realised it. There are a lot of bad people out there, some are opportunists. All it takes is one time you fail to lock that door, & the next thing you know there is someone standing behind you in the kitchen. his happened to someone that our sons know, this bloke was off his face. Fortunately no one was hurt & they got this bloke out, but you can see how easy it is to fall foul of an intruder.
Someone I worked with in the territory had a bloke hacking his way through their front door with a machete one evening. They were an elderly couple. The husband got his .22 rifle & fired through the door & the bloke took off. The police did not press any charges for firing the rifle. Recently though a farmer was confronted by a man with a knife & a batten of wood. The farmer used his unloaded rifle to disarm the man. The police came & confiscated all the farmers guns & have revoked his firearms licence. Our government is anti-gun & anti-self defence!!!
Keith.

 

[Prime]

Well that is a good thought, you may have indeed had people at your door at night & not realised it. There are a lot of bad people out there, some are opportunists. All it takes is one time you fail to lock that door, & the next thing you know there is someone standing behind you in the kitchen. his happened to someone that our sons know, this bloke was off his face. Fortunately no one was hurt & they got this bloke out, but you can see how easy it is to fall foul of an intruder.
Someone I worked with in the territory had a bloke hacking his way through their front door with a machete one evening. They were an elderly couple. The husband got his .22 rifle & fired through the door & the bloke took off. The police did not press any charges for firing the rifle. Recently though a farmer was confronted by a man with a knife & a batten of wood. The farmer used his unloaded rifle to disarm the man. The police came & confiscated all the farmers guns & have revoked his firearms licence. Our government is anti-gun & anti-self defence!!!
Keith.

Keith , I know this is predominately a UK based/themed prepper forum but would you mind just taking 5 mins to tell me what Firearms ( Full auto? Semi Auto? Calibre restrictions? ) you are allowed over there and is it off of one licence as per the UK?? Just interested

Is Firearm ownership generally accepted or frowned upon ?

 

[lonewolf]

Recently though a farmer was confronted by a man with a knife & a batten of wood. The farmer used his unloaded rifle to disarm the man. The police came & confiscated all the farmers guns & have revoked his firearms licence. Our government is anti-gun & anti-self defence!!!
Keith.

the same has happened in the UK several times, I think since the Tony Martin case most cases have been dropped after the initial arrest and investigation of the householders.

 

[lonewolf]

Well that is a good thought, you may have indeed had people at your door at night & not realised it. There are a lot of bad people out there, some are opportunists. All it takes is one time you fail to lock that door, & the next thing you know there is someone standing behind you in the kitchen.

many years ago (1990) I lived in a bed sit, a multi occupational house, one morning very early the guy from the mortgage company that the landlord used open the front door with a set of spare keys and proceeded to enter some of the ground floor rooms(my room was upstairs), he nearly got pounced on by the 7 or 8 people living there, he thought the place was empty!! good job he wasn't a burglar with a set of keys or a pick locking set, or had just smashed a window to get in! no accounting to what would have happened with a load of bikers living there!!

 

[swamp rat]

well I have not been so lucky in the past and have been burgled 5 times in the past ,in other property's not this one
and that's why I have gone along this road with bars
it is a sickening feeling when it happens ,and hard to put into words ,but it does not feel like your home anymore when
it happens , and with this fist hand experience I want to do as much as I can to try and prevent it happening again
I know it is not going to stop someone who really really wants to get in , but it might make a burglar think
it is too much like hard work ,and move on to another house

there has been a spell of burglary's a few miles away for me, where cold callers are knocking doors selling double glassing (dressed in suits) ,and if they don't get an answer ,they are helping them self's in ,and just steeling gold silver and small
valuables , you cant trust anyone these days

 

[lonewolf]

there have been some burglaries in a town 10 miles away but where I live is a small rural market town- I live right on the very edge-and strangers tend to stand out a mile! we have the usual J Dubs knocking on doors but even they have been low on the ground this year, I do have a "no cold callers" sign on the front door so i'm not sure if that is a factor.

 

[Barbara]

Some years ago, when l lived in a shared maisonette in a house in London, a man broke into our kitchen at 3 am. He must have made a lot of noise as l slept like the dead in those days (e.g. once sleeping through a fire alarm when the bell was outside my door! ...and no-one woke me!) Luckily the payphone was upstairs, outside my bedroom so l managed to call the police. They were there very quickly and caught him. They said he was drunk but he wasn't that drunk as he was using a knife to try and get into the gas meter to steal the money. Since then, l've always been careful about locking up. l expect l'm safer here in the middle of nowhere but wouldn't go out without making things secure.
Recently l heard that prospective burglars go round houses pretending they are putting things through letter boxes, but really testing the door to see who leaves their door unlocked. Since most people seem to have UPVC doors these days which need locking by key, not everyone bothers if they're in. Another trick is for one person to ring the front doorbell while someone else goes in the back door and can snoop around while the person at the front door keeps the householder occupied. Maybe l'm a bit over cautious but l don't want to meet someone, who is probably bigger than me, in my house when he/she is up to no good.

 

[Ystranc]

well I have not been so lucky in the past and have been burgled 5 times in the past ,in other property's not this one
and that's why I have gone along this road with bars
it is a sickening feeling when it happens ,and hard to put into words ,but it does not feel like your home anymore when
it happens , and with this fist hand experience I want to do as much as I can to try and prevent it happening again
I know it is not going to stop someone who really really wants to get in , but it might make a burglar think
it is too much like hard work ,and move on to another house

there has been a spell of burglary's a few miles away for me, where cold callers are knocking doors selling double glassing (dressed in suits) ,and if they don't get an answer ,they are helping them self's in ,and just steeling gold silver and small
valuables , you cant trust anyone these days

A similar thing happened in this area, a guy turned up claiming to be from Calor, we have no Calor gashe had no sign written van just a small generic tool box. He had no uniform except a high vis waistcoat but flashed a vague looking ID. The dogs were going mental behind the door, he obviously realised he had been caught on CCTV. We sent him packing and called the police. We had a great response, He was obviously scared off and we had no robberies in the area afterwards but it could easily have gone the other way.

 

[lonewolf]

you cant get from the front of our house to the back because the "garage"(12ft x 8ft wooden shed) is in the way and takes up all the room, we have a 6ft high solid wooden fence on top of a 2ft high wall plus a solid wooden trellis on the top(not the cheap expanding stuff this is a solid framed trellis), the new front door is locked both when we are in and out, it has a dead bolt and a door chain, the windows have all been replaced with new recently(this year) and the path is noisy chippings.
when our dear dog was alive she let us know when anyone was about long before they got to the drive.
there are now 2 noisy dogs next door and they go mental at any slight noise.