Having spent 30 years in Public Safety divisions of major telecom carriers, I’ve had the opportunity to direct and manage development of a number of property crime prevention applications. Today I’m cutting through speculative ideas about the nature of home break-ins to give you current facts not only about trends, but about how you can make your home resistant to burglary.
Let’s start with what we know about who is likely to break into your home:
85% of burglaries are committed by amateurs, often done by someone who is desperate.
50% of burglars live less than two miles away from the home they want to steal from.
Thieves are mostly male and typically under the age of 25.
Thieves are not planners. Only 12% of all burglaries are plotted in advance.
And who are thieves most likely to target:
Social media posters: 41% of victimized homeowners aged 18 to 34 years posted photos and updates on social media while they were on vacation.
Students are often targeted for their collections of electronic equipment.
Renters are 50% more likely to be burglarized.
The elderly are also a frequent target.
What are the properties thieves consider as easy marks:
Suburban homes have a 50% higher chance of being burglarized.
If your house has already been hit, 51% of burglarized homes are targeted again within 6 weeks.
Rental properties have a more than 50% chance of break in.
Homes without security systems have a 300% greater chance of being burgled.
Given the stats, it is clear that investing in home security is a wise decision. Tim Howell of Secure View, LLC has provided some key points to consider when choosing a security system.
For the Do-It-Yourselfer
Pro:
I can install it myself
It can be less expensive
A low or no monthly cost
Con:
You are then responsible for installing the equipment.
You well be responsible for the maintenance
You are responsible when upgrades are needed
Your personal information may be released
System may not be secure as you think
No Warranty
Professionally Installed:
Pro:
Expert in the field of Security
Professional security company assists with maintenance and troubleshooting
Your personal information is secure
System is specific to you and secure
1-year warranty on most systems
Con:
Can be more expensive because of higher quality and security?
Low to medium fee for monitoring?
DYI or Professional installation, know the answer to these:
What happens to my personal information when I register into the app of my new system?
How secure or private is the system and my information about the system, i.e., location, type, monitoring info etc.?
What is the warranty?
What is the monthly charge and what does it cover?
Who do I call when I need service on the system?
Whatever your choice of system types, now is the time to think about your home security.
The FBI gives us four good reasons why:
There are 2.5 million burglaries annually in the United States.
A home burglary occurs every 15 seconds in our country.
The average burglary loss is valued at $2,661.
Police solve only 13% of reported burglary cases.
Thanks to Tim Howell of Secure View, LLC for his contribution to this material. Tim has been a home security company owner for 30+ years. If you wish to know more about his company or how he can help protect your home, his contact number is (720) 708-7506.
The San Diego chapter of Sisters in Crime welcomes New York Times bestselling author Kate Carlisle on November 12 – Hey! That’s my birthday. What a great way to celebrate. You’re in for a treat if you sign up to hear about Kate’s adventures.
Kate is a native Californian who worked in television production for quite a few years before turning to writing. She leveraged her lifelong fascination with the art and craft of bookbinding into The Bibliophile Mysteries. Her protagonist is Brooklyn Wainwright, whose bookbinding and restoration skills unearth some very old secrets, treachery and murder. She’s written more than twenty books and still found time to launch the Fixer-Upper mystery series. A few of her works have been adapted for television.
Join the SinC chat with Kate about her books. Besides her writing she’ll have some great anecdotes about how she once traveled the world as a Dating Game chaperone and performed strange acts of silliness on The Gong Show.
Remember this date: Nov 12, 2022 02:00 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada). Register in advance for this meeting: https://bit.ly/3NyJJzi
The Hardy Boysseries on Hulu has been cancelled after three seasons. Amazing since The Hardy Boys has been one of the longest-running series in any format. This franchise started with the novel “The Tower Treasure” in 1927!
When the series began, books were attributed to an author named Franklin W. Dixon but were actually written by a group known as The Stratemeyer Syndicate. The Syndicate was founded by children’s book entrepreneur, Edward Stratemeyer. Statemeyer was colossally prolific, having created more than 1,300 books and selling over 500 million copies. He created YA characters and book series including: The Rover Boys, The Bobbsey Twins, Tom Swift, The Hardy Boys, and Nancy Drew.
Adaptations of the series books to film began in 1956 when “The Hardy Boys: The Mystery of the Applegate Treasure” was aired as part of “The Mickey Mouse Club.” Another series ran from 1969-1971, which was an animated version where the boys were members of a rock band. From 1977-1979 “The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries” appeared, teaming The Hardy Boys with Nancy Drew, another Stratemeyer-created character. Previously there was also a 1995 television series that lasted only 13 episodes.
Launched in 2020, the Hulu adaptation of “The Hardy Boys” was, according to Variety, a production based entirely in Canada with only Canadian actors. Since then, the series has scored two Canadian Screen Awards, a Directors Guild of Canada Award, and a Daytime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Young Adult Series. The final season will consist of eight episodes, an hour in length each, and will have Bailee Madison of “Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin” joining the cast.
Sadly after three seasons on the streaming service, Hulu has chosen to cancel the show following its third season. It seems that lack of awareness about the show may have contributed to its early cancellation.
Down for now, don’t count The Hardy Boys out. They’ve been a reappearing act for 95 years!
On Monday, August 29, Driven: A Rita Mars Thriller, took the Silver Award in the Fiction, LGBTQ category. I want to thank all my readers who took the time to review my work, who sent messages of encouragement and who rolled up their sleeves to help get my book produced and promoted. I could not have asked for more caring support.
About the EVVY’s
The CIPA EVVYs™ is one of the longest-running book award competitions on the Indie publishing scene, running for nearly 28 years. This annual contest is sponsored by the Colorado Independent Publishers’ Association (CIPA).
The CIPA EVVYs™ was founded by Evelyn Kaye twenty-eight years ago. Ms. Kaye was instrumental in bringing independent aspiring authors recognition for their literary endeavors. It is open to all types of independently published books from small presses that are too often overlooked by the giant publishing houses. The contest has grown to receive entries from as far away as England, Belgium, South Africa and Dubai. This year alone, the competition drew more than 400 entrants.
There are over 50 categories eligible to compete which allows a wide range of genres. The panel of judges is comprised of teachers, business leaders, critics, editors and, of course, readers. In this competition, judges must follow strict CIPA qualification process.
Awards are given to the top three highest scorers in each category. To achieve an award is certainly an honor.
The CIPA EVVY’s continue to be a leader in providing a pathway for independent authors to gain recognition for their work.
Imagine being held against your will in a mammoth swampy area with little access or no way out. A legendary demon mule lurks behind loblolly pine and the remnants of forests long dead.
You were brought in through darkness so rich and deep that it feels more like traveling in a different space as you cannot determine sky or land. Walking the treacherous ground feels like you are entering a dangerous abyss.
You don’t know where you are, and if you try to escape, you face vast, treacherous ground, or the risk of being absorbed into a marsh hole. Even the forests have drowned here, losing their grip on the land through brackish water and changing tides.
The smell of death, and struggle is all around you, with muskrats, mosquitos, snakes and the like. This can be a hostile environment.
This is Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, with its 28,000 acres of brackish wetlands and ghost forests holding a gloomier story of untold mystery and menacing despair.
Blackwater embodies a darkness that earns its namesake. Waters blackened with tannins, dying forests, and black marsh mud that can swallow someone in just a few unfortunate steps make this an unfortunately perfect place to go and never be found.
Blackwater’s mystery is found in a network of hiding places for those escaping the law or toward freedom. Places to hide are abundant for hunters, trappers, and criminals alike, and it’s easy to imagine entering the dark vastness to hold someone hostage, for example, or to disappear from the public eye.
This includes people living in the horrors of slavery and seeking their freedom by using the area as part of the Underground Railroad. Dressed in disguise, people who were enslaved covertly traveled at night through snaking creeks into the deep darkness of the area, careful to avoid slave hunters and their dogs.
It’s not hard to imagine a cold, stark winter here, with the blackness of night covering a ghostly stillness that envelopes the loblolly pine and cordgrass, only to be interrupted by the sound of a bat flying overhead, or the black water’s subtle movement as a muskrat swims to its burrow on the marsh’s banks.
The area’s marshy guts are also home to bald eagle, peregrine falcon, Sika deer, fox, coyote, vole, and rats. Once a great source of timber, Blackwater’s wetlands, fields, and meadows are now interrupted by hammocks of loblolly pine and salt encroached forest, with mosquitoes and fireflies abundant in the heat of summer.
Blackwater makes the perfect backdrop for my second book in the Rita Mars Thriller series, Objects of Desire, being published in late 2022.
You can learn more about release dates and more of the series’ perilous plot twists and turns at www.valeriewebster.com.
Valerie Webster and Driven: A Rita Mars Thriller in the spotlight via Author of the Day interview.
Make your next book club event an author event with a writer who’s lived the cases, developed the crime fighting technologies. Contact Valerie Webster today.
