Working for Trellidor, I’m more aware than most of what needs to be done to stay safe at home. I’ve followed most of the expert advice on offer and done what was necessary to make my house secure. But how do you protect yourself from robbery by a trusted person that works in your home?
Robbery often an inside job
Last week my cleaner, who had been working for us for six years and had never taken anything he wasn’t given, opened up our safe and stole everything of value. There were no eye witnesses, no finger prints and, of course, no sign of a break-in since he was working for us that day.
I do have evidence that it was him an empty jewellery box found hidden under some dirty cloths in our laundry but it is not enough for him to be arrested and the prosecutor declined to press charges.
Protect yourself from a repeat robbery
On the day I found out about the robbery, I did everything I knew from our Trellidor experts to re-establish our safety at home, including:
- Changing the locks on all external doors.
- Calling in my local Trellidor franchise to change the locks on security gates and burglar proofing that opens.
- Changing our alarm code.
- Changing the frequency on our automatic gate and recoding all our remote controls.
- Changing the frequency on our automatic garage door and recoding all our remote controls.
We then did an inventory of what else needed to be done, including becoming more disciplined about using our security measures.
This secondary list of security measures included:
- Moving our keys from their old location in the kitchen to a new key board in the bedroom safe zone where it will always be behind a locked door. This includes keys to all doors, windows and vehicles and spare remote controls.
- Ordering a Trellidor Retractable security gate for our passage to seal off our safe zone properly.
- Checking that security gates are locked before retiring to our safe zone in the bedroom area.
- Setting the alarm every time we leave the house, even if it’s for a short period of time.
- Setting the alarm every night and resetting it after false alarms.
I also keep a panic button on a lanyard around my neck when I’m home alone or working in the garden.
I know I’m lucky that there wasn’t any violence involved and my heart goes out to anyone that has experienced brutal attacks in addition to robbery.
But I’ll be doing my own housework for the near future!
Guest Contributor