For the second time in a year our relatively isolated rural property in what I thought was a very safe area has been broken into. The police haven't been able to help, and all the surveillance/deterrents that I have put into place have also not worked. The thought of a further burglary or possible physical encounter with my young family is starting to take a toll on my mental health. Looking for some ideas to get some greater peace of mind and/or make our home a less attractive target.
Some relevant background...
Our house is located up a very long, steep, and windy driveway on a large piece of land in a relatively isolated part of town. You have to go through a motorized gate that it at the street level. I installed a camera there as soon as we moved in and there are also cameras around the house.
We were first burglarized in July. It happened around 3 in the morning while we were at home. We had a furniture delivery in the morning so expect it was related to that. The people came in a car and literally pried the gate motors off and then drove in all the way to the house. Cameras got everything, but the car lights blew out the potential image of the plate (turns out you actually need specialised cameras to actually capture license plate details...). The people were also wearing hoods and gloves, so the police couldn't really do anything.
This whole thing really shook me and my family as they took our garage door opener and the keys to some larger power tools and I was convinced they would come back. It was a pretty brazen burglary. As someone who suffers normally from insomnia, this didn't help at all, but after a few months I sort of just forgot it and assumed it was a crime of opportunity. I installed motion-activated light at the street level to clearly highlight the camera but that's about all I could do.
Now this week, just four months later, it's happened again. The actual result was much less dramatic. This time it was two people on foot, jumping over the gate and then removing the key safe that I had further up the property (to open the gate in case of a power outage). They definitely saw the camera, as there was an attempt to take the pole down, but overall it was a quick thing (3-4 minutes on this occasion vs the 20-30 minute affair before) and they ran off after a few minutes and never went up to the house. Again, everything was on camera, but they were fully hooded, so once again, the police couldn't really do anything.
I'm pretty sure these were different people because they were on foot (clearly no car on surveillance audio), but I really don't know for sure. Either way, I'm pretty on edge now, as if they open they key safe they'll just be able to come right in any time. I have two young kids and the thought of some potential confrontation is also really scary. Considering how off the beaten path we are, I also have to assume this was targeted in some way as it's not an area that people really walk down or has much passing traffic. We've only been here for a few years, moving is not an option, and it's an extremely safe area in general (hence moving here in the first instance)
Anyway, I'm pretty much at a loss in terms of what to do from here. Apart from the ongoing sense of violation, I feel really nervous about having anyone up to the house so have all my deliveries come to the office. It's turning me into a pretty fearful and paranoid person which is not who I am but I'm really stumped as to what to do from here to try and make our home less of a target, or something I can tell myself to at least try to calm down.
A few other things to note:
1) Any sort of monitored service is not really an option. We're really in a rural area so anyone actually getting there would be pointless as it would take so long, and and there is no way to get power down to the front gate as it's so far from the house. The gate and camera are both solar powered with the camera using 4G to send notifications.
2) Any sort of audible alert like a siren would not work because of power situation, but also we get lots of false alarms from wind etc.
3) We have a small dog (who would not really do anything to help in such a situation but considering everyone always says - get a dog, just making sure this is known!).
4) We also have smart lights in the house as well.
Is there anything else I can do? It's killing me! TIA! |
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