Only two in five front door locks are secure enough

Only two in five front door locks are sufficiently secure in the Netherlands. According to research by the Dutch National Intrusion Prevention Foundation, most front doors (56.1 per cent) are poorly secured.  By 'poorly secured', experts mean that an intruder can break open the lock within 3 minutes and without difficulty. Despite the falling burglary figures (last year down to 50,000), it is still important to continue paying attention to burglary prevention. It is especially important with the summer coming.

One in eight (13.6 per cent) front doors has weak aluminium fittings. Burglars are through the door within a minute, using a large screwdriver or jemmy. One in six (16.7 per cent) residents of homes with poor front door fittings says they have installed three-point locks. This system closes the door in three places at the same time with one key. That is good security but if the quality of your fittings is not good enough, then the burglar can use a cylinder puller and then rotate the lock easily with a cylinder cam turner. These commonly installed (33.1 per cent) levers combined with poor door fittings give a false sense of security. Once a burglar has broken open the main lock, a bit of force with a jemmy is sufficient to get past this type of security.

And when people are on vacation, a burglar has all the time he needs to open your door. During the holiday period, there are an average of 10,000 break ins. Fortunately, an increasing number of people are realizing it is wise to check parts of their home occasionally for security weaknesses.

.