The Home Security Test

                 "Do you consider security an important factor in family life?"

If you answered yes, then you should check out Robert A Gardner's Home Security Test. There are over 100 security checks to confirm that you have done all you can to secure your home. As you're reading over the list you should see that we have told you a lot of these crime facts before. Also even though this test is older, the tips are still the same too! The basics of home security are easy to follow. 

Are we saying that this is an exhaustive list or that you should do everything on the security test? No, but this is a great start to making sure your home is safe all around.


Did you think of a check that is not on the list? Post it in the comments below.
The only thing we would add to this list is Door Jamb Armor on all your exterior doors.

Summer Time Protection Plans

Looking at property crime statistics over the past few years, there appears to be good news! Since 2007 property crimes have been decreasing each year. Accord to the latest statistics from the FBI property crimes are down 3.7% from the last year. This is great news for home owners and renters alike! However, does that mean you should slack off on home security?

To put that percentage into perspective, a decrease by 3.7% is roughly a decrease of 100,000 property crimes. However there were still 9,100,000 property crimes committed. Protecting your home, belongings, and family should still be a high priority.

During the summer months there is a spike up in crime. A lot of families go on vacation; leaving their homes empty and open to thieves. In an interesting study, statistics show that most burglaries do not occur at night, but instead during the day. Particularly, most break-ins occur between the hours of 9 am and 3 pm while most people are at work. In the United States a burglary occurs every 15 seconds. So between the hours of 9 am and 3 pm that is nearly 1,500 burglaries! 

How are these burglaries occurring? Well 30% of thieves are given easy access to homes through open or unlocked doors or windows. Of the others who do not find an open way in, 85% will kick-in a door. 

If you are going out of town or just want to improve the security of your home, here are three tips that can easily make your family and home safer

1. Reinforce: Upgrade the locks and screws on doors and windows. Then remember to keep them locked! Our EZ Armor product is 100% effective, easy to install and adds major reinforcement to every door. A simple do-it-yourself project to improve window security is called window pinning. An explanation of how window pinning works and how to do it can be found here

2. Social Prevention: With the thought of social, you probably think media. I however am referring to much more. If you are leaving your home for a long period of time (five days plus) it is important to keep your home safe. An empty house becomes apparent pretty quick; overgrown grass, no cars out front, or no lights on in the evening. An easy way to keep watch over your house is to talk with your neighbors. Explain you are going out of town and ask if they wouldn't mind occasionally checking in to make sure everything it okay. Also if they see any activity explain that you'd like them to call the police. In the evening a light timer can turn on a few lights for a couple hours to help feign the appearance of someone still being in the home. As for social media, it is important to not tell the world your home is empty; videos, pictures and updates are all signals to possible thieves that no one is home.

3. Security Planning: A security system is your last line of defense. Having a security sign out front is a great preventative measure. An active security system normally has police on scene in 30 to 40 minutes. The average thief is in and out of your home in 15 minutes. That is why preventative measures are so important

Stay tuned to our blog for more security tips and updates. Also keep in mind that until June 9th we have a huge clearance sale on our website. Use code CLEARANCE2012 at check out on ArmorConcepts.com for a 25% discount on all orders.

We would love to hear your security tips too, just leave them in the comments below. You could be featured in our next blog post! 

$10 million award in 2005 murder of woman in Edgewater apartment

March 28, 2012

A Cook County jury has awarded $10 million to the family of a 21-year-old woman who was beaten and strangled in her Edgewater apartment seven years ago. Melissa Dorner was found dead in her apartment in the 6100 block of North Winthrop Avenue on Jan. 24, 2005. She had moved to the apartment five months earlier, relocating there after a serial rapist attacked her the previous March.

A former resident of the building, Roberto Ramirez, was detained in Mexico a year later and extradited back to Chicago. Police say his hair, some clothing and other evidence were found at the murder scene. He pleaded guilty to her killing and is serving a 50-year sentence at the Menard Correctional Center.

Lawyers had argued that Ramirez had been accused of assaulting another woman in the Winthrop building two months earlier. But the managers of the building did not follow up on the case, and Ramirez was allowed to remain living there, the lawyers argued.

“Had the management company followed its own policies and procedures in screening prospective tenants, Ramirez would never have been in the building,” said one of the lawyers for the family, Colin Dunn said. “Numerous policies were either violated or ignored.”

Jurors reached their verdict after deliberating a day and a half. The jury assessed 90 percent liability against Ramirez and 10 percent to the building management, Wilmette Real Estate and Management, and the building owner, BCH Tower LLC of Chicago.

Thank you to Sgt (Chicago John) Nebl for sending me this information! Congratulations to Chris McGoey, who was the EXPERT on this case.

Police Endorse EZ Armor Door Security After Rigorous Test

Nashville, TN: Following a rash of kick-ins, the police in Buena Vista Township, Michigan, went out in search of some answers. They found the solution that they were looking for. They purchased the EZ Armor door security product at a local Lowe’s store and decided to put it through a rigorous test to see if the product actually worked as advertised. To their surprise, EZ Armor performed far beyond expectations and earned recommendations from several officers including the police chief himself. WNEM Channel 5, a CBS Affiliate in Saginaw, Michigan, ran the story as a “Does It Work” test and received a substantial response from viewers.

The bad economy has caused a national increase in burglaries, and situations like those in BV Township are happening more frequently everywhere. “They (kicked in my door) took some money and some personal things… To lie down in my bed and know someone had been in there, I was always looking around and waiting for them to come back. I just decided to move because I thought they would come back again,” said Ethelinda Taylor, a recent kick-in victim that was interviewed during the segment. While it may seem to be paranoia, Ms. Taylor is correct in believing that the thieves would likely return. FBI statistics show that a house that has been burglarized is more than 4 times more likely to be burglarized again.

Following the test, where they repeatedly kicked and hit the door with everything from concrete blocks to logs, the police were uniform in their praise of EZ Armor. Sergeant James Baker stands 6 feet 8 inches tall and weighs 295 lbs. After trying repeatedly to kick in a door equipped with EZ Armor he became a believer, “A lot of houses around here have old door jambs and after putting something like that on their door, I don’t think too many people would be able to kick it in.” After witnessing the test, Police Chief Brian Booker agreed “Security locks, this product here (EZ Armor), which is good, lighting and neighborhood watches. There are a number of things that you can do to keep yourself from being victimized.“

Armor Concepts CEO Alan Young responded to the story, ”This is pretty amazing because we did not even find out about this until two months after the spot aired. We have been challenging people to test our products and it’s great to see the reaction when a product like EZ Armor does everything we say it will and more. There are a lot of products out there that simply do not live up to their claims. It is great for people to see that police have thoroughly tested and recommend EZ Armor. That says more than we ever could.”

Armor Concepts LLC, develops, manufactures, and distributes door security and repair products. The company’s products have been featured on the CBS Early Show, NBC’s TODAY show, Fox News, Bloomberg, the Discovery Channel show, “It Takes a Thief”, HGTV, numerous local news segments and countless radio shows, national magazines and newspapers. Armor Concepts’ products are sold nationally through Lowe’s, Ace Hardware, Do-It-Centers, Grainger, Wilmar and numerous local hardware stores and locksmiths.

If you would like to learn more about EZ Armor or other Armor Concepts product solutions please visit their web site at www.armorconcepts.com or e-mail, info@armorconcepts.com.