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! 

An Ounce of Prevention

During the construction boom of the last ten years, investments in Rental Properties have risen sharply. Large management companies have procured vast amounts of apartments and condos in sprawling urban areas around the country.

With this progression, along with the current economic issues in the U.S., liability claims against these companies have grown right along side this phenomenon. Home Invasions, burglaries, and domestic disputes account for a large percentage of crimes in the country; all lending themselves to court dates against management companies, which is responsible for protecting it’s tenants according to the law.

If you rent in an area with a high crime rate, your landlord is, by default, obligated to take measures to provide a high level of security for the people who live in the dwellings. There is nothing more intimidating that to have someone kick-in your front door and take what you’ve worked so hard to accumulate, or worse yet, take your life or the life of your loved ones.
Adequate lighting and security cameras are not enough. Today’s criminals are performing at an all time high level and trying just about everything you can think of to break-in.

Property Crime Facts (According to the FBI in the US: www.fbi.gov):


One property crime happens every 3 seconds.

One burglary occurs every 10 seconds.

One violent crime occurs every 20 seconds.

One aggravated assault occurs every 35 seconds.

One robbery occurs every 60 seconds, or 1 minute.

Home Invasion Facts:

1 of Every 5 homes will experience a break-in or home invasion.

That's over 2 million homes!According to Statistics Canada, there has been an average of 289,200 home invasions annually over the last 5 years

Statistically, there are over 8,000 home invasions per day in North America

According to Statistics USA, there was an average of 3,600,000 home invasions annually between 1994-2000.

We know that alarms don’t work until the house has been entered and it takes so little time to do damage, it’s often too late. Robbers can be in and out of your house in seconds. If you live out in the country it’s even worse, as intruders may have all the time they need to work their way inside and take what they want.

But necessity is the mother of invention, and the best way to be safe, is to make sure your exterior doors are impenetrable. Which is where Armor Concepts comes in. It’s hard to imagine, but the majority of the crime statistics above could have been prevented for only $99: the cost of Door Jamb Armor.

As an employee, I receive many calls from customers who start the conversation with, “My house was broken into last week”, or “Someone tried to break in and now we’re scared”.

Don’t wait until it happens to you.

$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.