WnyHomeInspector.net

Home invasions have been making a lot of news lately mostly because of the violence that happens in them.

It might be worthwhile to explain the difference between a burglary and a home invasion. Home burglary is committed by a person who usually acts on his own who is unarmed and is looking for a quick snatch of valuables from your house. The faster the burglary is, the better it is for the burglar. A good burglary usually takes no more than 3 to 5 minutes.

The value of goods taken in the average home burglary is somewhere close to $1800. The damage done to the home during a home burglary is another $1800.00 on average. So it can be expensive.

The chances of getting caught are minimal to start with. But if the burglar should get caught, the penalties for a home burglary are a joke. That is why burglary is such a low risk enterprise.

A home invasion, on the other hand, is much more dangerous. Two or more people usually do them and they are usually armed. Their intent is to commit robbery usually with a firearm, making it armed robbery which has far greater penalties. Home invaders are usually looking for drugs and because they are armed, their threats are much more dangerous. Violence usually accompanies a home invasion.

Statistics show that a surprising number of home invasions start at the front door of a home. Many people, when they hear a doorbell or knock on their front door reflexively open the door without checking to see who is there. A big mistake! Before you open your door to anyone make sure you know who’s there and don’t, under any circumstances, let a stranger into your home.

It only takes 2 seconds, once the door is open, to get into your house.

The best thing you can do is to prevent a home invasion. If you are a victim of one here are some things that you can ahead of time to mitigate the problem.

First of all develop a family strategy. If someone should gain illegal entry into your house the first step would be a fail-safe way of getting in touch with authorities. Many a home invader has been caught red-handed because people acted quickly. That should be your first step.

The second step should be to have some self-defense products available. A stun gun or a pepper spray may disable the assailants long enough for you to get away.

Do what the home invaders ask. Your life and the lives of your family are worth far more than whatever the home invaders are asking for.

Follow these tips and you may avoid one or survive one.

A lot of people commonly think that installing a new deadbolt is a tough job. It generally isn’t nearly as hard as people think. Typically when you replace a lock the existing holes in the door match up with what you need for you new deadbolt.

Before we get started and you buy a new lock make sure that you check to see that it will cover the entire hole in the door left by the old lock. You don’t want it to be a bit smaller and show some of the old hole that was drilled there. This is not very likely as most doors have a standard size hole drilled but better safe then sorry.

Now on the back of the lock on the inside of your door you will see two screws just like in the photo to the right. These screws anchor the front and back together pinching the lock on the door. Take out these two screws and and you can pull the front and back of the lock off of the door. Make sure that you hold the front of the lock or it might fall to the floor damaging something.

The next step is to take the bolt out of the door. The picture to the left is what the bolt looks like so just pop that out of the hole that its in.

So far so good and you basically just repeat the steps backwards and the new deadbolt will go right in. So take the new bolt and insert it right side up into the hole that you just took the last one out of. Once this is in place take the front and back of the lock and place them together on the door. There will be a flat plate the goes through the bolt from the front face of the lock. That is what turns the bolt in or out when you insert a key or turn the thumb turn. The thumb turn, like you see in the first picture, is on the inside obviously with the key hole or keypad facing the outside. Now insert the two screws and tighten the lock to the door.