A common weak link in home security

It's often the master bath window, or a similarly-configured window in another ground-floor bathroom of a home.

The increasingly-bizarre case of Houstonian Theresa Roemer's burglary illustrates this very well.  According to published reports, approximately $1 million worth of jewelry and consumer goods were stolen via the breakage of a window that, from looking at this photo, I estimate might have been worth about twenty bucks.

Image courtesy of this Houston Chronicle piece.  

Bathroom windows are very often the weakest link in the residential security chain for the following reasons:

1. Most of them are fixed panes of glass and therefore they cannot be outfitted with alarm sensors designed for windows that can be opened.  
2. Most suburban homeowners with standard-configuration lower-end security systems do not have glass break sensors, motion detectors, or security cameras installed in or near their master baths.  Those implements tend to be found in the main areas of the house such as in hallways, near entries, or in great rooms.  
3. Even if there is a glass break sensor nearby, it is possible to penetrate typical bathroom window sheet glass without setting it off.   
4. Most of these windows are single panes of glass and therefore easier to break through discretely than the coated double-paned energy-efficient windows typically found throughout the rest of the house. 
5. As well as being single panes of glass, many tract home master bath windows are inexpensive and thin, making glass removal even more straightforward.
6. Many tract home master bath windows are also large and situated close to the ground, allowing for efficient personnel ingress or egress.
7. Master baths are typically located on the side or rear of the house, so they can be accessed without burglars being seen from the street.  

Typical greater Houston tract home master bath configuration, screengrabbed from a real estate listing chosen at random.  Behind those 2-inch blinds appears to be a thin sheet of plate glass.  Many homes in our area are constructed similarly.  

So what's the work-around to this potential point of weakness?

One of the easiest improvements is glass block.  While not foolproof, block presents a much more stubborn structural deterrent to would-be burglars.  Image screengrabbed from a real estate listing chosen a little less randomly. 

When I announced to my husband that we would be building our home with glass block in the master bath, he cringed.  "But I hate glass block," he lamented.  "It's so 1970's."  Which of course is true, especially given that our builder offered only one out-dated style of it.

I agree with my husband - it's out-dated.  As far as I'm concerned, the only thing that glass block is good for aesthetically is abstract macro-photography.  This is a photo I took of a blue clapboard home and its sunlit driveway with landscaping vegetation out in front, as seen through an inner-loop friend's glass block wall.  

So I gave my husband a choice.  I said, "Either we go with the builder's glass block option, or we let the builder install the usual flimsy plate glass and then we do our own custom overhaul of the window after we close on the house."  For simplicity, we went with the builder's option.  And of course it's not a foolproof security solution, but we also have brick facing on all sides of our house, so the glass block is set into the frame and the brick rather than into wood alone with a pressed board / Hardi siding surround.  It's possible to penetrate it, but not without a sledgehammer.  And if someone is ever dumb enough to try a sledgehammer, our entire cul-de-sac will become alerted to their activity pretty quickly.

Thus sayeth the previously-burgled blogger who has no desire to go through that kind of recovery process ever again.  Nothing is ever guaranteed, but an ugly window is a small price to pay for a bit of added protection, in my opinion.

Too bad this analysis doesn't break it down by which first-floor window is most often used for entry.

Screengrabbed from this Protect America info site.  No endorsement intended or implied.  

Friday night security tape oddity

Our security cameras caught some odd dog walkers yesterday just before midnight.

It appeared to be two females, one with medium-long hair, one with shorter hair.  The one who was not walking the dog was carrying a flashlight.  One doesn't need a flashlight to walk a dog in Centerpointe.  The street lights provide plenty of light.  Perhaps these two felt they needed it for a sense of security?  

But why the need to inspect my driveway and front yard with the flashlight?  

Why the need to inspect my garage door with the flashlight?  

Why the need to inspect my front entrance, tree, and flowerbed with the flashlight?  

Why the need to run like hell after circling the cul-de-sac?  

It's quite possible that these were just youths messing around.  If so, they were up past their bedtimes.

Home security system false alarms: One mystery solved

Have you ever had your home security system fail and produce false alarms and you just can't figure out why it's doing that?  If you try to search the problem on the internet, you're going to be hit with an avalanche of sales sites and other useless information.  I'm going to describe one means by which a common type of residential alarm can fail periodically and erratically in a way that was surprisingly difficult for us to determine.  This is one thing you can check for as you are troubleshooting your own system.

Few things in everyday suburban life are as annoying as an alarm system that refuses to function.

Screengrabbed from www.memegenerator.com

Most simple home security systems use magnetic sensors on windows and doors.

They look something like this, usually screwed to the window sill.  If anything interferes with the magnetic signal between the magnet attached to the window and the sensor attached to the frame, the system will fault and produce a false alarm if it happens to be armed at the time when the fault occurs.    

In our case, the fault problem was ultimately caused by an aluminum window blind.  I had initially discounted that blind as a possible cause because of three assumptions that I subsequently learned were not correct:

NUMBER ONE - I had assumed that an aluminum blind was, in fact, made of aluminum (duh) and, as a non-ferrous metal, it would not interfere with the magnet.  I had paid a lot of money for these blinds because they are mounted on our two garage windows.  I wanted all-aluminum to ensure that they would not rust over time (we live in the humid subtropics and so corrosion is a concern).

As it turns out, the blinds themselves are aluminum, but a few of the trimmings are made of steel.  And this particular little trimming just happens to fall exactly where the magnet is located.  

NUMBER TWO - I had underestimated the *exquisite* degree to which the magnet was sensitive to the placement of the bottom rail of the window blind.  Literally a half an inch separated "no alarm problems" from "nothing but alarm problems".  For as long as the blind was 100% lowered, there would be no problem.  But if someone left it just a bit elevated, the alarm system would behave erratically, producing faults.

There's also a third reason why it was very difficult to troubleshoot this issue.  When we first installed those blinds several years ago, they were neat and pretty and new, and everyone in the house basically left them in place, lowered all the way down.  We went for three years with no alarm faults.  Then all of a sudden, things started going haywire.  I'd be sitting quietly at my desk working, nobody else would be in the house, and I'd hear the alarm chime, indicating that a fault had just occurred.  Why would anyone logically suspect window blinds as the cause of a thing like that, given that they'd already been on the windows for years without incident?

But of course what happened over time is that family members had been raising and lowering them, sometimes leaving them in sloppy configurations.  And at one window, some garage equipment had gotten shoved up against the blind, further pushing the bottom rail up against the magnet.  And those changes were enough to tip the magnetic balance and make the sensor connection fade in and out unpredictably.  

This was the only way to reliably fix the weak link in this failure chain (remember, if the alarm faults and you can't get to your phone, the police come to your house and all heck breaks loose):

This will prevent a future family member from "forgetting" and leaving the blind in the wrong position, triggering a false alarm.

Go through your house and check all your window blind bottom rails.  Even if they're not aluminum, they might contain some metal parts that could be contributing to your alarm issues.

We also have faux wood and real wood blinds in our house.  I checked both for metal pieces.  The faux wood had a hollow bottom rail, but no metal was visible in there.  

The real wood blinds had no metal anywhere on or in the rail.  

A more secure front door

Almost two years ago, I published an account of a burglary that my family experienced while living in Pearland.  Since that time, I've also talked about new technologies such as security cameras, but there are a few basic physical loose ends that I never got around to covering. 

And now is a good time to do it, given that we're in the holiday season when there's typically an escalation in bizarre burglaries.  This is the time of year when a certain segment of our population realizes that they've over-spent on crank to the point where they have no money for holiday gifts, and so they better go steal something to cover the gap.  It was just over one year ago that the lady on Walnut Pointe emerged from her shower to find that men had broken into her house. 

As always, this is not legal or professional advice I'm supplying here, and I'm not a home security expert.  These are just some personal observations as to what I've chosen to do, and why.

My Pearland burglars gained initial access to the house by using a battering ram to break the frame of our front door.  The door itself was a heavy solid mahogany number and would not yield, but the frame was simply builder-grade pine plus common hardware and it splintered accordingly.

This was the same approach used back in August of 2012 by the individual(s) who apparently attempted to break into that home on Cypress Pointe.

Except in that case, they targeted the BACK door rather than the front.  That attempt was not successful, but the door and frame were reportedly damaged beyond repair (according to the account published in the neighborhood newsletter).
Screengrabbed from www.crimereports.com
And by the way, it's been delightfully quiet around here lately, crime-wise.  This grab shows reported incidents from August 1, 2012 through November 27, 2012.

Why do burglars insist on breaking down heavy doors when every house has about fifteen fragile ground-floor windows they could choose instead?  I don't know - perhaps it's just a failure of imagination - but they do this fairly predictably, so here is a photo sequence showing how we reinforced our front door several months back.

Well, a partial photo sequence at least, because my husband had already commenced this particular honey-do before I had the camera ready.

Basically our front door has this very common configuration: door knob below, and deadbolt above.  As delivered by the builder, each of these components had its own separate small strike plate held in place by two screws (you can see the original holes here). 

My husband went to the hardware store and bought a single larger, thicker strike plate which fit this standard spacing (I believe it cost about ten bucks).  However, given that the frame had been fitted with the original separate plates, he had to trace the outline of the new one and then use a chisel to chip out the extra wood, so that the new larger plate would sit flush with the frame.  This job is a pain in the lower anatomy requiring patience, but it doesn't require a lot of skill or special tools.  What you see here is the finished chisel-out. 

Here's the new single-piece strike plate dry-fitted in place.  Notice how it has nine screw holes instead of the original four that the two smaller plates had. 

But THIS is the picture that really tells the thousand words.  That screw on the right is one of the original screws installed by the builder.  The one on the left came with the new strike plate.  Which do you think offers more protection: four of the right screw or nine of the left? 

The reason why doors break down so easily is that the frames are pretty flimsy.  These longer screws were designed to anchor way back into the stud wall and provide substantially more strength. 

I can't imagine what it would take to break down this door with this new hardware installed.  I think the door itself would have to be reduced to splinters (and it's mahogany, so it's stronger than it looks).  The frame is a lot less likely to let go now. 

Of course, all this effort would be for naught if it were not coupled with the use of double-sided deadbolts:

It took us a while to get to this frame-reinforcement honey-do, but I had a locksmith installing these deadbolts within 48 hours of us closing the contract on this house.  The original house came with one-sided deadbolts, meaning, there was a knob you turn on the inside to open it. 

With this configuration...
You need a key to get into the house.
You also need a key to get out of the house.
This idea freaks some people out, but let me explain.

If you don't use double-sided deadbolts, you can have the strongest door and door frame in the world and it wouldn't amount to a hill of beans because the burglars can simply pop a small hole in that door glass, reach in, turn the latch, and walk through your now-unlocked door. 

I can't remember who put me onto the idea of double-sided deadbolts.  It may have been the Pearland police officers who investigated our burglary, because I've used double-siders on every house I've owned since that time. 

This idea scares some people because they think, "OMG, what if there's a fire and I can't find my keys?!  I'll be trapped!!" 

Well, first of all, exercise a bit of self-discipline and keep a spare key near every double-deadbolted door, but keep them:

1. Beyond the reach of anyone who puts an arm through the door glass, and
2. Near the door but hidden.

We do this in my family and it's not a burdensome procedure - we're accustomed to it.  And woe to anyone who screws up and moves a key from its assigned location. 

Secondly, remember that you still have your fifteen-odd ground-floor windows to choose from if you need to get out in an emergency.  Overcome psychological inertia and see the senselessness of requiring a door as an egress point in an emergency. 

Double-sided deadbolts also offer the following additional advantage:  They impair a burglar's ability to get back out of your house if they do get in, say, through a window.  Even if they come in by the riskier means of a window (visible window transits clearly signal something wrong at the house - door transits may be ambiguous and less noticeable to neighbors and passers-by), they're most likely going to want to exit through a door because they'll be carrying your goodies and it's inconvenient to try to muscle flat-screen TVs and other items out of windows that were never designed for such activities.  Faced with these kinds of efficiency barriers, they may just conclude, "Oh, to hell with this!" and go find an easier target. 

Our back door is a different configuration and I'll try to deal with that in a separate post.  In the meantime, may your holiday weeks be burglar-free.