The Miniskirt Murder Bare Minimum Guide to Life #2

The whole problem with numbered posts is that every time I turn around, another week will have gone by. That’s ok. Life is good.

So last week’s installment was about protecting your family’s sanity in case something happened to you. This week’s post is about protecting your own sanity against a very common (sadly) state of events.

I was at a party last week talking to a police officer who investigates property crimes, and I jumped at the chance to get these questions answered in light of recent break-ins in my neighborhood. Is an alarm enough to deter burglars? And if not, is homeowners’ or renters’ insurance going to do the trick? And what is the biggest mistake people who have their houses broken into make in the process?

So here, in order of cheap to expensive, the Bare Minimum Guide to Not Getting Your Shit Stolen/Getting it Back if it Does:

1. Take photos of your stuff and store in your email. Free. If you don’t know what you have, it’s hard to make a list of what is gone and what you probably paid for it. A lot of times you need receipts or other proof of what you owned to collect on insurance. And if you can’t afford insurance (more on that in a moment), you’ll want to have the serial numbers to send to local pawn shops, where a ton of stolen stuff ends up. You can seriously do this during a commercial break tonight with your cell phone.

2. “Beware of Dog” signs (or a real dog) are more effective than alarm company signs (which apparently indicate that something of value is inside). $5. The officer told me that burglars are aware that most alarms only work if the door or window is opened, so for example, if your window is smashed, the alarm isn’t going to go off until the motion sensor, usually in a different part of the house, is set off. A typical robbery is by someone who wants to get in and out quickly without harm, so the possibility of a dog is a greater deterrent.

3. The officer’s point was that you can’t prevent someone from getting in if they really want to. The better plan is to make sure you know what you have, how much it is worth, and if you can’t be properly insured for cost reasons, then take the free steps above. If you own a house/have a mortgage, you probably already have homeowners’ insurance. But if you have something special, like a musical instrument, nice jewelry or a watch, or even special furniture or something unusual, your regular policy limits probably aren’t going to cover it. For about $30 extra per year, I got an extra $25,000 in coverage to cover my piano. It’s worth the phone call, I think, if you have something special.

4. If you rent, you should really, really, really not eat out once or twice a month for lunch to cover the cost of a renter’s policy. My policy in LA was about $20 per month for an apartment with the usual amount of stuff and electronics. Pretty cheap for peace of mind, especially because I would have been way too poor to replace anything if the place was broken into.

Moral of the story? Document what you have, if nothing else.

See you tomorrow!