Gardai have revealed the days and times homes are most likely to be burgled as Ireland faces long winter nights.
Officers have warned households to be vigilant as burglaries can increase by 20 per cent this time of year. The warning comes as part of gardai's winter phase of Operation Thor, which is designed to prevent potential burglars from taking advantage of the reduced hours of daylight.
It has been revealed that homes are most likely to experience a break-in between the hours of 5pm and 9pm on a Thursday, Friday and Saturday during the winter months.
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The winter phase of Operation Thor kicked off at the weekend and will run until the end of March. Gardai say that since it's implementation in 2015, burglaries have declined. To date this year, there have been 6,100 residential burglaries reported but during the same period in 2019 there were 10,297.
The An Garda Siochana Property App launched last week and allows the public to index and record their personal property, for example, jewellery, electronic equipment, bicycles, laptops, farm machinery etc. In a situation where the user has their property stolen, the app has the facility to easily report the theft to An Garda Siochana.
As well as using the app, Gardai advised some simple steps which can help protect your home.
- Turn on some lights, LED bulbs are more energy efficient than traditional bulbs;
- Use timer switches/ motion detectors;
- Lock all doors and windows;
- Use an alarm;
- Store keys away from windows;
- Don’t keep large amounts of cash or jewellery in the house.
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