 Fast Eddie was a successful recycler of luxury items until one evening in 1988, when he was nabbed with eight place settings of silver in his gym bag and a tea tray stuffed down the back of his Nike sweatpants.
"You always want to wear a good brand of clothing. It cuts down on the suspicion factor," Eddie explained.
In fact, Eddie loves explaining the fine points of the B&E (breaking and entering) trade even though, as he takes pains to point out, he's retired. Recently, we joined him in the basement of the Episcopal church where he's been a custodian since he got out of prison. There, amid cleaning supplies and stacks of hymnals, he gave us his take on home security.
"A good burglar, you see, is a student of the human species," Eddie said. "You get to know people by walking around neighborhoods, looking at stuff. You learn an awful lot that way. You see computer boxes or stereo boxes sitting out there on garbage day—bingo! Somebody got new toys. Lots of liquor bottles—they're big partyers and probably heavy sleepers. And people who leave tools and stuff lying out in the yard day after day, good chance they're slack about locking their doors."
 "But the main thing you notice is whether they're home or not," he continued. "If there's newspapers all over the place, mail stuffed in the box and blinds down during the day, they're not home. Unless they like to sit in the dark, that is.
"Now, the kind of professional like I was, he wants to stay in business. Doesn't want any hassles, wants to get in and out fast. If there's a dog or a dinger [house alarm], he goes elsewhere. And he works during the day. Nighttime stuff is too dangerous. Somebody's laptop is not worth dying over." (Eddie was typical: Police estimate that 60 percent of all burglaries take place during the day, most before noon.)
"So you go where it's easy," he said. "Dingers don't keep anybody out of a house, really, but I'd rather skip any place that had one. Some guys don't care, though—can you believe they watch TV in the place they're hitting? Or they make a sandwich! But even with an alarm, it takes the cops 10, 15 minutes to get there. You leave the door open, and I'm in and out in five.
"Same thing with those lights [motion-sensing security lights]. They're fine if they're up high enough, but half the time I could just reach up and unscrew the bulbs. I'll say it again: all that high-tech stuff doesn't do squat if the doors and windows are easy."
 Eddie went on at great length about human folly and burglary methods, but he also had some concrete suggestions about easy, inexpensive ways to make your home safer. So here, with Eddie's blessings, are seven tips on home security.
1. Lock up. Almost half of all burglars enter through an unlocked door or window. Bathroom and kitchen windows are most often left unlocked, because people open them to let out moisture and then forget to close them.
2. Make sure every exterior door has a deadbolt lock. Entry locksets are ineffective ("A joke!" said Eddie) because most have only a short, spring-loaded latchbolt. With a flat bar, a burglar can easily pry a door far enough away from its jamb to pop the latchbolt. Eddie preferred "loiding" a door, using a plastic credit card ("celluloid" was an early type of plastic) to trip the latch and open the door. Other, less artful B&E men just kick the door open, often shattering the lock mechanism and the door jamb. |
