How To Protect Your Garden Buildings From Holiday Thieves

Garden buildings security is a recurring issue as the number of garden buildings, summer houses, workshops and log cabins being broken into has been rising over the last few years. Whether this has anything to do with the economic climate or not can be argued but it must be seen as a possible cause. I personally feel that most decent people don’t resort to these sort of tactics and that the culprits would most likely still try to break into these sheds whatever the state of the world.

What is important is that you don’t offer these thieves any temptation and to incorporate security measures on your shed to make them go looking for easier targets. Why this might seems selfish if you don’t YOU will be the one losing your valuables items out of your shed. And now is the time to be doing this before the holiday season is upon us and your time will be spent getting ready for that relaxing break.

The key (pun not intended) is to ensure that you keep your garden shed locked up and you should always use a good strong lock. The locks which can be bought at Poundland will be easily bypassed and the few pounds you save will be wasted when you count the cost of a burglary. The other important thing is to ensure you use the lock at all times when the garden shed is not being used. This is harder to do in practice than in real life but do your best on this.

It’s important that the strong lock goes onto a well-secured hasp and staple and the sort of hasp and staple I suggest at best are the fold over type. This means that when the hasp goes over the staple all the screws in the hasp are covered meaning that they can’t just be unscrewed. Straight forward advice but not everyone gives a thought to this.

You can go even further than this by replacing one of the screws in each section of the hasp with a nut and bolt. This will stop any intruder being able to force the hasp off with a crowbar. This advice also extends to the hinges on your garden shed for the same reason. There’s no point putting a strong lock on your shed if all the thief has to do is to unscrew the hinges. Hopefully, this makes sense and will put me on the thieves blacklist.

I also recommend, where possible, to ensure that any garden gate you may have is also protected it the same way. This will ensure that your garden shed is even more unlikely to become under attack and your garden valuables will remain safe. Another simple thing I would suggest is to cover up the windows from inside as this will help to remove temptation. If a thief can see really valuable items then they will make more of an effort to get at them.

A security light is useful so that even under the cover of darkness intruders will not be able to do the work without being noticed. The only downside to this, and which I know is about, is that nocturnal animals may set the light off in the night. This might make you think ‘it’s only a fox or cat’ so you need to be aware of this. All these tips have evolved over the last 39 years whilst I ran 1st Choice Leisure Buildings

In recent months, in the Halstead area of Essex, the local paper issues warning about these sort of issues and also offered security tips. This included ensuring their sheds are kept secure as well as adding lightweight trellises around their property or putting in prickly bushes, which these intruders detest. In Nottingham police advised that garden gear should not be left unattended and that all the valuables in the garden shed should be marked with the owner’s postcode and house number, ideally visible in my opinion so that they can be tracked and returned to their owners if recovered.

Written By Robin - Expert in Garden Buildings For 42 Years.
Hi, I'm Robin Antill, founder of 1st Choice Leisure Buildings, and I use my expertise gained over 42 years in the garden buildings industry to understand that each customer is different. With my manufacturing, retailing and customer service experience my articles help people choose their ideal shed, garden workshop, summerhouse, log cabin or garden office needs to suit their requirement and that is key to satisfaction. And what do I do when I'm not writing? You may find me following Grimsby Town Football Club or riding roller coasters - so plenty of 'ups and downs' in my life.