Home Theft Protection: Secure Your Garage

Downsize the remote

Thieves know right where to look for your garage door opener remote—clipped to the visor in your car. To avoid giving them easy access to your garage, take the remote with you when you leave the car. The handiest way to do this is to replace your big remote with a small keychain version (sold at home centers or where you bought your garage door opener). Match the remote to the brand and year of your opener. Then follow the instructions for programming it.

If you’ve lost the remote for the garage door opener, it’s possible that it has ended up in the wrong hands. To be safe, follow the instructions that came with your opener to reset the code, disabling the lost remote. While we’re at it, here’s why you need to wrap your key fob in foil at home.

Photo 1: Lock reinforcer

Prevent the door from splitting by wrapping it with a metal lock reinforcer. Mark the edge of the door and chisel a shallow recess so the reinforcer is flush to the door’s edge when it’s installed.

Photo 2: Heavy-duty strike plate

Reinforce the weakest link on your service door by installing a heavy-duty strike plate with extra-long screws that penetrate the framing at least 1 in.

Photo 3: Anchor hinges to frame

Strengthen the hinge side of the door by replacing one of the screws in each hinge with a 3-in.-long screw that penetrates the framing.

Motion detector upgrade

Replacing light fixtures with ones that have a built-in motion detector is an easy way to make your house and garage more secure. Burglars will be reluctant to jimmy open a door or window when they’re working under a bright light. Or you can add a standalone motion detector that connects to your existing lights. If you live in a cold climate, don’t use compact fluorescent bulbs in the light fixture. They take too long to light in winter, giving thieves extra time.

Garage window cover

To prevent burglars from “casing the joint,” cover glass so they can’t “window shop.” Use curtains, shades or blinds as garage window covers. Or apply a translucent film to the glass to garage windows that obscures vision but still lets in light. Plastic film like this is available in several patterns from the window covering department of home centers as well as at full-service hardware stores and window covering retailers. It’s also available online (search for “privacy window film”). Installation is simple. Follow the instructions included with the film you purchase.

Window bars

Make your own window bars for a fraction of the cost of factory-made bars.

Tee connection

Bolt the bars to the frame with tees bolted in place by lag screws and washers.

Latch trick

When you go away on vacation, unplug the garage door opener. If you don’t have an opener, padlock the latch or disable the door by putting a bolt through one of the holes in the garage door track. This will prevent someone from coming in through the overhead door while you’re away.

A timer never forgets

Leaving the garage door open is practically an invitation to burglars, not to mention that you’re really presenting a storefront window display of your possessions to anyone driving by. But if you’re like a lot of other people and tend to forget to close the door, or have kids who forget, there’s an easy solution. Install a device that signals your garage door opener to close the door after a predetermined amount of time. You can set the amount of time that elapses before the door closes, or override the control if you want the door to remain open. It takes about an hour to install the sensors on the garage door track and the keypad that connects to the opener control. One more point: When you’re leaving for work, don’t just hit the remote button to close the door and then drive away. Wait until it closes to make sure it doesn’t reopen. Learn more garage security tricks.