But everything that subjectively feels safe should also be done.
YES, the personal "security
feeling" is just as important as actual existing security, because an insecure feeling greatly affects my quality of life, regardless of whether this feeling really matches reality.
For example, we don’t have much security apart from mushroom heads, a visible dog food bowl, and on the terrace there is a coffee cup, shoes, and garden tools lying in front of the terrace door, which look like we just quickly rushed inside the house. I arrange that before every vacation, and then I also feel comfortable.
I see the "mushroom heads" or similar technical devices the same way as useful technology for burglary prevention, and the other things give you a good, safe feeling yourself and possibly also work in individual cases. That is why THAT is right for YOU, I also always ensure my own well-being alongside technical things, whether anyone understands that or not; even a spouse might have a different view and he/she should definitely also think about their own security
feeling.
Better to control the lights via app and have them turn on and off irregularly in the evening when away.
....if it positively affects your personal feeling, definitely YES. Whether it actually helps.......cannot be determined.
Planned burglaries are surveilled.
The big difference is whether one becomes the victim of (more common) "normal" apartment burglars, who mostly roam through neighborhoods in the winter half-year from late afternoon on to see where they can quickly and easily grab something, or whether one becomes (possibly) the victim of certain burglars who deliberately and plannedly select specific objects/persons because they suspect or even know there is something specific there (expensive car, paintings, larger cash amounts of a business owner, etc.). Therefore, it plays a significant role what exactly I want to protect myself from and how.
For this reason, broad "watering can" thinking or quick, unquestioned advertising promises are usually misplaced.
You have to be a harder target than the neighbor.
Exactly! That applies in 99% of all cases. Anyone who spends days deliberately scouting and surveilling an object will not come to my single-family house anyway.
They are dropped off near residential areas, one rings the front doorbell, the second goes into blind spots... three hours later they are already in another district, three months later they are exchanged.
Yep...... one knows their way around!!!
That’s exactly how it happens in 99% of the cases and against that you can protect yourself relatively well with simple means, as and wrote, to make it harder or more difficult, strictly following the "Holy Saint Florian / Spare my house, set others on fire!" principle.
There is no general protection, no matter what I pay or install. I have to tailor it to my situation/person. Do I want to protect myself from the pervert who might even break in upstairs for sexual reasons, from the car thief who wants my Porsche, from the annoying doorbell ringers/beggars, the "normal" 99% typical apartment burglar, the child molester (who mostly is much closer than one might think), the curious neighbor’s gaze, or the thief who wants my firewood, winter tires, or bicycles.
We lived for a while in an absolutely safe country that nevertheless has a wildly exaggerated sense of insecurity among the population. Sirens constantly blared, beeped, and shrilled wherever you went; eventually, no one responded to it anymore, it just whistled and shrilled constantly... with or without a thief.
Many houses had electric fences and several intentionally made-aggressive shepherd dogs on the property, families mostly lived in gated communities and lived in fear of everything and everyone... except the church, mobile phones, and the sugar they shoved into themselves by the kilo.
Let’s see how long it will take until it’s similar here. We are certainly already well on our way there... and despite all understanding for home security, THAT is what frightens me the most!