What To Do After A Burglary (Essential Checklist)

Being the victim of a home burglary will be one of the most stressful and upsetting times of your life.

Having strangers enter your personal space and rifle through your possessions is a traumatic experience, so this article offers practical advice on what to do after a burglary – this advice will help you on multiple levels, including your own recovery and reassurance after such an event.

Below is a handy table of contents. Click on a heading and it will take you directly to that part on the page.

What To Do After A Burglary

Here’s exactly what you need to do after a burglary.

We assume at this stage, that you have already done the following or the following has already happened:

The following advice will help you feel a little safer and will offer you some reassurance in times of great stress and uncertainty, and will tell you exactly what to do after a burglary.

1. Check Your Keys

If any keys have been stolen during the burglary, then it’s essential that you get a locksmith in to change the locks.

Some insurance companies might arrange this for you (check your insurance policy).

2. Check Your Bank Cards

As part of your initial audit of ‘stolen items’, if any bank cards were stolen, ensure you ring up your provider and cancel those cards.

This is especially pertinent right now, as contactless limits were recently raised to £100 per transaction without the need for a pin number.

They could potentially do this multiple times up to the value of £300 before a pin is requested.

3. Computers Or Tablets Stolen? Do This NOW

If you’ve had a laptop, computer or tablet stolen, and you didn’t have a passcode or lock on it to prevent anyone else getting into the device, then you need to act now – especially if you use features on that device that auto logs you into various websites and services.

If someone has your tablet and there was no passlock on the opening screen, they could now potentially access the internet and use the auto fill feature to log into any websites that you used on that device.

But here’s a handy feature.

If you used Google Chrome web browser on that device (and 92% of us use Google Chrome), you can easily log into another device, like your mobile phone, and log every linked device out of Google.

This will disable any auto fill features.

To do this, simply use another device and click on your user name or profile (usually top right), and select ‘sign out of all devices’.

This will then automatically sign you out of all devices where you were signed in, therfore protecting your account and all access to your saved websites, apps and services.

4. Implement Security Measures

Make no mistake about this, and I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news – but your home has been chosen because your security measures haven’t deterred the person from breaking in.

Having security measures layered on top of each other is a huge deterrent, and can often mean the difference between someone breaking into your home or walking on and finding a softer target.

Criminals choose easy targets.

They choose homes with easy access.

They choose homes that look like they have little or no security measures.

So improve your home security measures and make it hard for them and go and read our huge article on the 75 ways to improve home security.

Updating your security arrangements and target hardening your home is really important on two levels. the first, for the actual security of your home and deterring and preventing a repeat burglary.

But most importantly, implementing security measures will help with your mental and psychological recovery – these measures will make you feel safe and reassurred going forward.

A Startling Statistic

Please do act today.

Read the 75 Ways to improve home security article today, and make plans to improve your home security ASAP.

Why?

Because burglary victims have a 1 in 4 chance of being burgled again.

So please, implement some visible security deterrents as soon as you possibly can, which will greatly reduce the possibility of you being a victim of a repeat burglary.

Do Sleep Well

As scary as the above statistic is, do remember that 75% of burgled homes don’t get burgled again.

And you can improve your chances of not being a repeat victim by following the advice written in the article mentioned above.

Questions & Comments

As always, if you have any questions or comments, use the form below – we respond to every single comment.

Maybe you’ve been the victim of burglary? Maybe you’ve got your own tips and suggestions on what to do after a burglary?

Whatever your comment, drop it below and start a discussion.