Eugene’s List Blog

According to national surveys, Tucson ranks near the top in the country for non-violent crime such as burglaries, carjacking, ID theft, etc. Although I do not have statistics on this, anecdotal evidence suggests that many burglaries occur after a home has undergone some sort of maintenance or renovation work. What most likely is happening is that a contractor hires unscrupulous day labor workers that use the job as an opportunity to case the home and then come back later armed with the knowledge of the home’s layout and homeowners schedule to burglarize the home.
Although there is no fulproof way to make your home perfectly safe, there are things that you can do to mitigate the risk.

• Work with a reputable licensed bonded and insured contractor.
• Have a conversation with the contractor before the job starts about the day labor. Let him/her know that you’re very concerned about the safety of your property.
• During the job, make yourself visible frequently and at random times. Try to vary the schedule as much as possible.
• Restrict access to parts of the property that are not undergoing work.
• If one of the workers looks suspicious, contact the contractor right away and voice your concerns.
• Have highly visible security measures in place such as a dog, security system, and closed and locked gates.

In the end, in these economic times, it is better to be slightly paranoid but safe instead of caution free and sorry.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 18th, 2009 at 6:56 am and is filed under Working with Contractors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.