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Your Money
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Your Money
Posted:
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02/08/2006

Two million Britons regularly leave an external door unlocked when they are out of the home, according to research from Halifax Home Insurance. Householders take the least care with their back door, with 1.3 million people regularly going out and leaving it unlocked.

Halifax is urging homeowners to lock doors, warning that external doors provide the entrance point for 68% of all burglaries. And 1 in 4 burglaries involve a thief entering a property through unlocked external doors.

Reasons given for leaving doors unlocked when out of the property included a belief that neighbours were watching the property (18%); perceiving the area they lived in as having low crime (18%) and regularly forgetting to lock doors (10%).

And 3% leave their door unlocked because they feel that they don’t have anything worth stealing. However, reformed burglar, Bob Turney, now a probation officer disagrees, commenting: “The average household contains around £3,000 to £5,000 worth of items that are easy to steal – such as laptop computers and mobile phones.”


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