Illusion of activity – countermeasures
Depending on your relationship with your neighbour, you could invite them to occasionally park a car in your drive or outside your house to increase the illusion that there iactivity in, around and associated with your empty house.
If safe and appropriate, you could ask a neighbour to allow their children to play in your garden occasionally. You might wish to ask a visiting gardener, or the relative who icollecting your milk and checking for unwanted mail and circulars, to bring their children with them to boost the illusion of occupancy.
• Remember that carefully rationed acting will help awell! When the man who lookafter your garden ileaving, he could stand at the gate and pretend to be holding a short conversation with ‘you’. For example, he could pretend to be answering a question and call something like OK, I’ll check to see if I can get a couple of those roses, see you next week’ towardthe back of the house. If the acting ilow key and only tried once a week it should help.
Travel Advice And Advisories For Ireland Photo Gallery
Careful collection
Think security in everything you do. Don’t make a big thing out of leaving for the airport. It ipointlestaking all of these security stepto make people think you are still at home, if you make so much noise and fusabout leaving that half the county can’t help knowing that you have gone to the airport with three large suitcases. If Uncle George itaking you to the airport, get him to reverse up to the house and slip the caseinto the boot. If you are going in a taxi, try to arrange for a time when there won’t be a big audience watching you. If everyone drivepast your house on the way to work between 8 and 9 in the morning, try to arrange for the taxi to collect you before 8 or after 9. That way fewer people will see you leave with your obviouholiday cases.
Long holidayand businestrips
There are wayof covering up a holiday that lasta couple of weeks, but longer holidayand long businestrippresent some unique problemand are harder to hide.
Aa police officer I wacalled to a house that had been burgled and heavily vandalised. It waa detached house set in a large garden, and the ownerwere on a six-month businestrip to the USA. They had taken some holiday countermeasureto disguise their absence but that wasn’t enough. Unfortunately they hadn’t identified the new problempresented by an extended absence. When they had been gone a couple of months, loutnoticed that the house waclearly unoccupied, broke in, stole some property and then stayed to trash the place. Toiletand basinwere broken, tapwere left on, paint thrown around and doorripped off their hinges. The television wasmashed and china and glassware wabroken and thrown all over the house. The final bill for damage and losran into thousandof pounds.
