Neighbor News
What Are the Chances?
Chances are you think it'll never happen to you, so what are the real odds of you becoming a victim of crime in Texas?
When most people think about crime, they probably think that it will never happen to them, after all, what are the chances that it will happen to you?
A recent study on the chances of crime looked at burglaries across the nation featuring major cities in Texas and detailing just what the chances were of becoming a victim of burglary with some interesting odds.
The Odds
Austin should probably look to change their motto from ‘Keep Austin Weird’ to ‘Keep Austin Safe’ with Austin residents having a 1 in 128 chance of being burgled and 0.84 burglaries happening every hour.
Find out what's happening in Austinfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
If you’re a Dallas native things are a bit more bleak than Austin, Dallas residents have a 1 in 69 chance of being burgled with 2.20 burglaries happening every hour.
Are you a Houstonian? Well the good news is that Houston isn’t as bad as Dallas with the chances of being a victim of burglary being 1 in 128 with 2.06 burglaries happening every hour.
Find out what's happening in Austinfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
San Antonians, lock those doors! If you live in San Antonio you have a 1 in 126 chance of being burgled with 1.36 burglaries happening every hour in the river city.
The worst city for crime in America thankfully isn’t in Texas, that award goes to Georgia with Atlanta residents having a shocking 1 in 17 chance of being a victim of burglary!
Increasing your chances of not being a victim
It’s not all doom and gloom with these numbers, after all, there are steps you can take to keep yourself and your valuables safe:
- Avoid hiding spare keys around your property
- Install motion sensing lighting around your property, especially your front and back doors
- Don’t place valuables in obvious places or in easy view through your windows
- Install a burglar alarm
- Do not leave your garage door opener in parked vehicles
- Secure sliding doors
- Monitor mail delivery - the build up of mail signals to would be burglars that you may be away from your home
- Leave your lights on when you go out, if you are going to be away for a length of time, connect some of your lamps to automatic timers to turn them on in the evening and off during the day
- Keep gates and garage doors locked
- Install deadbolt locks on entry doors
We all know the saying ‘Don’t Mess With Texas’, and hopefully, if you follow the above tips then people won’t even attempt to mess with your home.
