Ridgewood Police Issue Residential Burglary Alert and Remind Residents on Summer Vacation Precautions
June 25,2014
Ridgewood NJ, The Ridgewood police Department responded to a home on Van Emburgh Ave near Route 17 on Tuesday 6/24/14. Entry was made to the home between the hours of 10:30am and 5:30pm by removing the first floor window air conditioner and climbing through the window. We remind our residents to be vigilant and report any suspicious activity to the Ridgewood Police Department. If you have a first floor window air conditioner it is a good idea to make sure it’s properly secured. Anyone with information please contact the Ridgewood Police Detective Bureau 201-251-4537.
With summer vacations approaching we remind residents to take some basic steps to prevent your home from becoming the target of a burglary.
• Have a neighbor pick up your mail and newspapers.
• During an extended vacation, make arrangements to have someone mow your lawn or trim your bushes.
• Leave lights on automatic timers.
• Notify the Ridgewood Police Department that you will be away.
• Ask a neighbor or friend to stop by your house periodically; have them open and close blinds, turn on different lights.
• Let your neighbors know when you are leaving and when you plan to return home and if you are expecting anybody at your house while you are away.
• Burglars want easy access to your home. Make sure all trees and shrubs are trimmed near all doors and windows where intruders might hide. Add exterior lights and consider lights that are activated by motion sensors.
• Burglars like to work quickly, so try to slow down their path into and around the house. You can accomplish this with:
1. deadbolt locks
2. window locks
3. bars placed in the tracks or track locks on all sliding glass doors and windows (if they would not impede your escape in an emergency)
4. locks on all doors and windows
• Don’t place the fact you are gone on your telephone answering machine.
• Don’t broadcast the fact that you’ll be away on Twitter, Facebook, craigslist, in your blog or anywhere else on the Internet.
• Don’t hide your keys on your property.
• A nosy neighbor is a burglar’s worst enemy. Get to know your neighbors and work out an arrangement to watch each other’s houses. Let them know when you will be gone and whether any deliveries are expected during your absence.
• Store jewelry and other valuables in a safe hiding place, such as a safety deposit box.
Go through each room and write down a list of possessions, including serial numbers. Take pictures of your valuables and keep them in a safe place or with a friend or relative. This will help in the event of a burglary.
If you would like a crime prevention survey of your home, contact the Ridgewood Police Department community Policing unit.
201-652-3900
Lt.Todd Harris tharris@ridgewoodnj.net
Lt.Glenn Ender gender@ridgewoodnj.net
Doing all of the above helps.
Now lets fine the solicitors who leave crap on the doorknobs and the unwanted advertising in the driveways.
There is no evidence that burglars are using social media to target homes. These are predominately crimes carried out by drug addicts looking for a fix not by criminal masterminds who research targets. The amount of time/energy that would be required to find and target individuals based on Facebook posts is far beyond the motivational level of 99% of burglars.
On the other hand, the biggest crime in the last decades in this town saw $460k stolen just down the hall from the police department. Maybe they should not encourage you to call them to say you will be away!
The police dept. suggestions are good ones ………… Don’t try to change the subject to advertising material ……….. again …. that one is going nowhere …………..
#1 nice idea, but i do not think the solicitors can or ever will be stopped.
#3,Advertising material left at an unattended house invites burglars.
Case allow has allowed ‘news’ so they used to stick a section of the paper in with their 200 adverts.
Lately they skip the news and just do the adverts..its littering and its illegal to throw shit on someones property.
I’d suggest that if anyone’s home is burglarized after they take proper precautions and its been demonstrated that these illegal ads were on the driveway, I’d sue the shit out of whoever put it there, and whatever product(s) were being promoted.
Well, allow me to suggest a radical idea…. first, you can stop mail and the newspapers…then talk to your neighbor and ask him/her to pick up the unsolicited stuff on the lawn and doorknob…
I have a suggestion. Enforce the laws against littering.
If an advertiser is too cheap to put a stamp on their solicitations, then I wouldn’t do business with them.
And maybe ENFORCE the law against soliciting without a permit.
And how about the ‘do-not-knock’ list.
My neighbors are typical lazy do-nothings.
Their empty recycling barrels are still out on the curb 2 days after pickup.
I wouldn’t want to count on them for ‘security’.
*and my mail & paper are always stopped when I’m gone*
I hate reading this stuff. During the day, too.
A contractor once showed me how to secure a window with an a/c in it. This was for a second-floor a/c but there’s a little roof just below it, and he was concerned. You buy a huge fat nail and nail it down at an angle in a way that includes the window itself and the frame. But yes, it makes holes and I never did it.
I was recently away for five days. I had my mail stopped, ordering it online several days before leaving, to be delivered the day after I got back. Nevertheless, no surprise, I found about a day’s worth of mail in the mailbox when I got home. Called the P.O.: “A sub”–the usual excuse. Lame apology #275.
Sorry, there is NO EXC– USE. The attitude is, don’t letter carriers deserve a vacation or day off? Of course!!!! That is not the point. Surely they can come up with a system to make this work when a resident is on vacation (summer…duh). This has been a sore point (here) for over FORTY YEARS.