Ensuring you have good security measures applied to your front door is vital when it comes to home security. This is why many people will call their local locksmith to come and upgrade the locks to much stronger more reliable ones. Having said this what is shocking is how many people overlook the security risk that their letter box poses.
What is letterbox burglary?
Letterbox burglary is a method that burglars use to either steal small but high value items such as car keys and wallets via the letterbox or even use it to gain entry to your home by reaching up and removing the latch or turning a key on the other side of the door. Unfortunately, these methods are incredibly effective and have a high success rate for burglars, and it is very easy to do and requires little to no skills to pull off.
How to Prevent Letterbox Burglary?
- Always store car and house keys out of sight from the door and never leave them in the lock. This is even more important if your door has glass panels. it is worth taking a look through your letterbox to see what you can see from there as this is exactly what a burglar would be able to see, this way you can move items, so they are stored well out of sight.
- Install an anti-burglary letterbox, these letterboxes have been put through rigorous testing to ensure they are vandal proof and snap proof and make sure that they comply with current security guidelines.
- Replace current letterbox with one that has a draught excluder built into it, the nylon bristles of the draught excluder make it very difficult to see anything through your letterbox and would make letterbox burglary much more difficult for a burglar to be successful.
- You could add a letterbox restrictor. This will prevent your letterbox from being lifted past a certain point which will stop burglars being able to put their hands or tools through your letterbox.
- You could opt to have your letterbox removed completely and use an external mailbox instead. This option can be quite expensive so it may be something to consider if you are looking to replace your front door completely, you can choose a door without a letterbox and install an external mailbox for your post.