Thieves casing Blacktown homes – with your permission!

Most people in Blacktown are fairly cautious when it comes to letting strangers into their home but there are few instances where this is almost unavoidable. Some examples include:-

1. Open House Inspections
   Your house is the sale and your real estate agent has organised an open house inspection. Open house inspections are almost impossible to avoid if you want to sell your house but they also allow fees to come in case your house to look for security weaknesses.  Our advice is to try and avoid open houses and request your agent instead organise private inspections whether people viewing your house first have to provide ID. This won’t prevent the most determined of burglars but it will make it more likely they will seek a softer target. 
2. When you are selling large items of furniture. 
   Thieves in the Blacktown area have been known to answer classified ads to view lounges, dining tables or large items such as fridges and washing machines and then to casually make conversation about how it might be difficult to get the item out of the house, using this as an excuse to inspect both the front and rear entrances to the house.

It is difficult to avoid providing people with access to your house to view large items unless you have a secure garage(be careful – garages are targets for thieves as well)  but just be cautious. Some tips?

• If someone asks to come and inspect an item at your property ensure they first provide you with a fine of up and tested that you can call them on it.  Thieves like to be as anonymous as possible so I thief intending to burgle your house is unlikely to wish to provide this.
• When people are at your house inspecting a large items are sale if they ask things like where do you both work, how are we going to get this item out of the house etc just be warned that perhaps they are not making pleasant conversation they are asking you to let them know if you are generally around during weekdays so they can come back and robbed you and are seeking to do a quick security inspection of your house in order to do the robbery.
•  If your house is relatively insecure and letting someone in to see your item is going to make this obvious to a potential thief than our recommendation is just don’t do it. 
•  EBay! That’s the answer I say. Describe your items well, take lots of photos, and offered the item to sale over the Internet. Anyone wishing to come and do an inspection of your item will first have to register on eBay and provided some ID giving you at least a level of security