Corona-virus and Low Level Crime

I have never lived through something that has rocked the UK like the corona-virus.  It is understandable that people are frightened, especially vulnerable and older people.  This is the time that we need to try and come together and support each other.  Sadly, human nature being what it is means that we will all need to take steps to protect our loved ones.

Part of the third phase of the Government’s response will be to tell the police to ignore “low level crime”.  That worried us at Brisant, as we know that telling burglars that the police won’t try and catch them, will encourage them to break into our homes.

This is what you can do to protect your belongings and your home.

1. Keep your doors locked all the time, even when you are inside

Almost three quarters of all burglaries occur with the intruder coming through an entrance door.  If you don’t know the person at the door, don’t answer it. Ideally you need a camera to be able to see who is there and decide if you trust them.

If you are upstairs having a sneaky mid-day bath,  out in the garden lounging on a dodgy deck-chair or digging up that pesky old rose bush that you’ve been ignoring for two years, lock all your doors.  Doors need to be fitted with a three star sold secure diamond lock, such as Ultion.

It is dangerous to assume that just because you are in the house that it is secure.  It isn’t safe.  In 64% of domestic burglaries someone is at home.

2. Lock your windows

If a burglar can’t get in through your door, they may try the window.  If the windows are locked it makes it much harder.  Breaking the glass is noisy, the last thing an intruder wants to do is draw attention to themselves.  It’s also harder to remove goods.  When a window is broken it is normal your handbag or wallet that goes missing.   If the burglar has time, they will look for another way out of your home.  So if your keys are obvious and they can open the front door, they will pop in through the back window and remove all your goods through your front door.

LOCK YOUR WINDOWS and KEEP YOUR KEYS AND HANDBAG OUT OF VIEW

3. Install an alarm, CCTV and a doorbell that videos people

The Ring doorbell has the advantage of showing you who is at the door.  Brisant-Secure received a video from a homeowner’s Ring doorbell, showing a burglar walking away from the lock once they realised it was Ultion.  He was swearing about not being able to get through it. We like those videos a lot. We may not be able to stop these people trying, but we can sure as hell stop them getting in.

There’s been much debate about how effective alarms are. At the end of the day if the alarm is going off the burglar is already inside.  However, we will never know how many burglars decide to go next door when they see an alarm box, rather than target your house in the first place.  They are a deterrent, but a deterrent worth having.

CCTV gives hours of entertainment. The other day I used it to prove that a parcel hadn’t been delivered when the courier company claimed it had (video footage sent off and parcel re-issued).  It can even show you what the burglars look like when they try to get through your front door, but fail.  They will fail due to your diligence of fitting Three Star Sold Secure Diamond Ultion locks on all your entrance doors.

4. Don’t tell everyone you are going on holiday!

Well there’s not too much hope of you going anywhere soon.  However, be careful on social media and in your local area about broadcasting that you are going on holiday, or away to look after elderly parents.  You need to keep it to yourself.  The more people who aware that your home is empty, the more likely it is that it will become a target for attack. Additionally, be careful about sharing photos on social media of you in your bikini in Barbados.  You are letting potential burglars know you are a good twelve hours away from home.  It gives them many hours to get in, take all your stuff and get out again!

However, do tell your neighbours (as long as you get on with them and they aren’t wearing a balaclava.) They are the best people to be able to keep an eye on your house while you are away and make sure that it is secure.

5.  Be careful where you leave your handbag/wallet

Don’t leave your car keys, phone, wallet, handbag on view next to the window or door – it is just too tempting.  There is a ridiculous amount of opportunism in theft and with less policemen on the beat, and the police needing to ignore low level crime, there is a rise in opportunistic theft.

6. Install outside lighting and have lamps on a timer

Burglars don’t like lights, especially ones that detect movement and flood the area so you can see what’s going on.  For cost effectiveness fitting floodlights is up there will changing all your cylinders.

Also, if you are on holidays, pop a few lamps on a timer.  Lights left on all the time are a give-away that you aren’t there.

7. Burglars don’t like dogs

Burglars don’t like dogs.  They bark when there’s someone trying to come into their space. In fact my two dogs go ballistic. There is no way you would be sleeping through that. As an adult, I’ve always had dogs.  I didn’t even realise how safe a big well-trained dog made me feel until I was alone in the house last year the night before I went on holiday and the dogs were in kennels.  Not only was it eerily quiet, but I obsessively checked all the doors and windows as I knew that my doggy alarm system was on holiday.

This is Daisy, terrifying, isn’t she?

8. Keep your shed secure

I have a shed at the bottom of the garden full of goodies.  I feel confident telling you about it, as it is locked with the Brisant-Secure padlock keyed alike with my Ultion front door key. Burglars love sheds, they are full of goodies that can be sold easily and that people need all the time. http://ultion-lock.co.uk/products/padlocks

Keep your home safe from burglars, even if you are in it!

These are my top eight tips for keeping your home safe and secure whether you are in bed, in the bath or in Barbados. Louise fitted Ultion locks on her house, read about her experience here. Louise secured her home from burglars just in time…

How do burglars enter homes in the UK?

Research shows us that 78% of all burglaries occur with the home being entered through the front or back door.  Would you believe that only 2% of these entries happened because the lock was either picked or bumped?  The figures don’t tell us whether the lock was picked because by the time the locksmith arrives to change the lock, it is impossible too distinguish between a picked and a bumped lock.  Hence the 2% figure looks statistically vague.  However, we at Brisant have made and designed locks for many years.  We suspect that most of the locks, if not all of this 2%, will have been bumped.

Do burglars in the UK pick locks?

We don’t think so!  Some of us may have an image of a “James Bond” style burglar who gets on his hands and knees with his roll of special lock picking tools and then uses his well trained eye, his hugely honed skill to gently and quietly pick the lock which opens silently. Lock picking is a combination of skill, training, practice, specialist tools and patience.  However, trust us, that is not the profile of the typical UK burglar.  UK burglars are not highly skilled, trained lock pickers.  They are thugs who try and batter their way through your door and lock.

If you think of lock picking as a sport, that gives you a better understanding of what is going on.  It’s a game played by highly trained people against each other.  Being a lock picker is like being a master chess player.

How do burglars try and get through your lock?

Most burglars try and snap the lock.  Unless you have the right lock in your door, a burglar will be able to snap the lock, using brute force and a screw driver, and be in your house in seconds.  They will not be able to do this with the Ultion lock.  Ultion has a £1000 guarantee against lock snapping.  We don’t think any burglars would bother learning to pick a lock (not that we think they’d have the brains to be able to learn anyhow) when they can use brute force to get through many locks on many doors in the UK.  Protecting yourself is easy and relatively cheap.  This is not something to be scared of.  Protect yourself with a high quality lock and stop making it easy for them.

The next highest level of reported break-in method by locksmiths is drilling.  This means that the burglar has a great big power drill and tries to drill the lock out.  Imagine the man walking around the streets with a cordless drill, making 100 decibels plus of noise and getting through a range of drill bits, making a complete mess and a huge amount of disturbance on the street.  Now imagine a homeowner getting home and realising they have lost their key.  He borrows his mate’s drill from next door because, after all, how hard can it be to drill a lock?  I’ll drill it out and get in.  After a few drill bits, commotion on the street and them still being locked out, they call the locksmith.  Many locksmiths tell us that they suspect that the “14%” figure of reported attempted break-ins by drilling would be significantly less than that in reality, with a good percentage being the homeowner trying to get into their own home, realising they can’t, but not wanting to invalidate their insurance.

Locksmiths are highly trained individuals

Locksmiths in the UK are highly trained individuals that spend many years honing their skill so they can keep homes safe and secure.  The development of locks started in Ancient Egypt 6 thousand years ago, when a basic ‘pin tumbler’ lock was made from wood.  Imagine the time, skill, brains and engineering that has gone into creating the best quality locks available on the UK market that can keep your home safe.  Imagine the time, skill, brains and engineering that goes into trying to get through them.

Lock-picking tools and the sport of lock picking

The people that dedicate their lives to the skill of picking locks are not the people breaking into your house.  They are not scumbags.  They are highly intelligent people helping move forward the safety of lock engineering.  The video attached to this blog shows a prolific lock picking specialist called Locknoob who has picked hundreds of locks picking an Ultion lock.  He said to us,

“In real life people aren’t burgling houses by picking locks, I have the luxury of a warm office , a choice of equipment, time to practice and a vice to help me.”

He has no pressure, no one watching him, no time restrictions.  He is not looking over his shoulder worried about someone catching him.  He is doing this for interest only.  He is a “lock-picking master.”  In the time it takes this highly trained specialist, in the comfort of his own home, with specialist tools, your burglar would have made it in and nicked your laptop and been half way up the road.  Burglars are not trained specialists.  They are – in the main – lads that have failed in school, done nothing with their lives and so have to try and nick what you’ve earned by forcing their way into your home.  They can force their way through an unprotected door in 9 seconds.  They are just taking advantage of people that are not educated in how to protect themselves.

Arguably any lock can be picked with the right tools and the right environment and time.  Did you know that in some states of America even owning lock picking tools is a criminal offence as its seen as “intent to break the law.”

The standard UK burglar is not a highly trained individual, they are an uneducated scumbag

The last part of this video shows a real life burglar recorded on a Ring doorbell.  He is trying to snap the lock.  The door has an Ultion lock on it and you can hear them say they, “can’t do it” and they leave empty handed.  Burglaries are done and gone within moments.  The longer they are there, the more chance they will be caught.  If you stop them from managing to get through the door, your property is much safer.

Would you lend your house key to a stranger and tell him your address?

We all know how careful we are about giving away keys to our homes, we don’t do it.  Keys are reserved for our closest families and friends.  Nobody would ever walk up to someone they have never met before and give them their address and key and feel safe.  It would be madness to behave like that!

Do you keep your PIN number and credit card in the same place?

Everyone knows that to do so is crazy because it means unscrupulous people can empty your account of cash. Banks are forever telling us that they will never ask for your PIN number, it is a secret shared only by you and a super-crypto computer somewhere. Yet loads of people don’t realise that buying their home lock from an unknown eBay seller is as risky as keeping PIN and card together.

Buying locks on eBay can be Dangerous

If you buy a lock from eBay, you are putting your safety, your possessions and your home at risk.  Allowing a total stranger to know your address and have access to the lock that will be responsible for securing that address, is risky.  How do you know that you have been sent all the keys that were manufactured with that lock?  How do you know that the seller hasn’t copied the key before it is sent in order to enter your home illegally at a later date? How do you know that the seller isn’t going to sell the key with the address?

‘So, I will just have it delivered to a different address’ you may say. Easier said than done in reality. If, like me, you use Paypal with eBay you’ll know that for the sellers security PayPal won’t allow deliveries to addresses that the homeowner and payment card aren’t registered to.

Brisant-Secure’s Key Control

If you buy a lock directly from the manufacturer, or from one of Brisant’s approved suppliers, you as the homeowner will be able to activate “key control” immediately.  Activating key control means that you receive an email if anyone tries to cut a key with your unique Ultion key code.  It works fantastically well, if the lock is bought from Brisant or one of our approved suppliers.  However, if bought on eBay and the seller has copied the key BEFORE they sell it to you, key control offers no protection.  Buying a lock is one of those things that you have to do directly with a door company, locksmith or manufacturer to be sure of your safety.

Buy your locks from known trusted sources

A homeowner must buy their lock and their door – together or separately – from trust worthy traders.  It might sound like it should go without saying, but there isn’t a lot of point in buying the most secure lock on the market if someone else has a key!

What is an accessible home?

It’s a new decade and we have no doubt at Brisant Secure that this decade will be about Smart technology.  Increasingly people want their homes tailor-made for their needs.  It makes sense with the advances in technology for everyone to have a home that enables them to live their life to the full.  Whether people are disabled from birth or temporarily disabled through injury or illness, having their environment especially suited to themselves is a basic requirement in this new decade.

What adaptations can be made?

You only have to watch a few episodes of DIY SOS to see the amendments that can be made.  Hoists can be attached into bathrooms to make washing easier; electric beds; lowered counter levels in the kitchen.  Even having light switches at the right level when you are a wheelchair user makes a huge difference.  One of the biggest issues though, is opening the front door when it is hard to get to the door. Whether it’s to let the kids back in from school or a carer.

Brisant Secure design Ultion Smart

Brilliant Secure designed Ultion Smart to address this need.  It has a range of functions which help people with differing tasks.  For people whose hands don’t have strength, there’s the “twist assist” function.  The most gentle touch will enable the door to be opened.  This is useful for people with arthritis.

What about people who have limited mobility?  Ultion Smart can be opened on voice command using a unique reference number.  Alternatively visitors can be given codes unique for one day, one week or weekly codes that are inputted on an outside pad.  The programming has infinite possibilities that can be programmed to what is happening for the home owner.

Ultion Smart can be set to open when it detects the owner’s phone within a specified zone set by the homeowner.  So, when you are coming back from work, the school run, with the shipping and have your hands full, the door will unlock automatically and then lock again.  The  is set to lock itself after 30 seconds with no need to lift the handle up.

James from Lockrite fitted Ultion Smart and this is what he had to say

James from Lockrite fitted an Ultion Smart on a customer’s home who is also a wheelchair user.   He made a video to explain its features and he told us,

“This is a locking solution that I recently put together for a local customer.  It incorporates some of the newest smart devices available at the moment and I’m very happy to say that it has completely changed his life for the better.”

Brisant couldn’t be happier.  This is exactly what we were hoping would be the case when the team developed Ultion Smart.  It’s a new lock for a new decade and it makes people’s lives better.

Brisant-Secure (the owners of Ultion)  is the eighteenth fastest growing company in the UK, according to the Sunday Times Virgin Atlantic Fast Track 100, published Sunday December 1^st 2020.  We think this is down to the popularity of Ultion.

Homeowners are more savvy about how to protect themselves

As we know, police numbers are down and burglaries are very low on their list of priorities.  Homeowners have had to become significantly more “savvy” in terms of protecting their own properties, after doing a little research they soon realise how exposed they are. They then go to find out what they can do to protect themselves

Homeowners upgrade their locks to Ultion three star plus

During the three years that The Sunday Times measured this growth we have witnessed a surge in people looking to protect themselves with the best locks.  Alan, head of a Neighbourhood Watch scheme in Scotland, coordinated the upgrade of the whole estate to Ultion, purchasing over 45 locks and padlocks.  Alan said, “It’s foolish not to change your locks, it is the cheapest and most effective way to secure your home.”

Homeowners surprised at how little the best protection costs

What we hear often is how surprised they are at how little the cost difference is between a normal lock with no security and the best lock that genuinely keeps the bad guys out. John (who shared a video recently showing burglars not getting past his Ultion lock) said “after I was burgled last year and upgraded my locks I was really surprised at how little it cost to get the best lock available”.

Brisant’s strong research and development team give people what the need and what they want

85% of break-ins are through lock snapping; 58% of burglaries happen while homeowners are at home; a staggering 28% of people meet their burglar.  At Brisant we would prefer a world where people did not try and take your possessions, but that’s not happening anytime soon.

John’s cheap locks didn’t stop a burglary

A year ago John, from Birmingham was burgled.  He took advise from a local locksmith and asked for the best lock available on the market.  He fitted the Ultion lock on all entrance doors, including the patio doors.  John said, “I was surprised at how little the extra was from a normal lock to an Ultion lock.”  Having been burgled once, it was understandable that John wanted to be able to protect his property and his belongings.

Ultion stopped another burglary

At tea time last Friday, another attempt was made to break into John’s home.  He was almost home from work.  The intruders were trying to gain access through his patio doors.

29% of People see the Burglar

Fortunately John didn’t see the burglar attempting to break in, unlike 29% of people who do.  The patio door handle gave a fight, but not enough.  Ultion however, did prove too much for the burglar and they threw in the towel and left.

Buying a cheap lock is like buying a cheap parachute

There are certain things in life that we need to protect us.  We live in the Midlands and along with many of our neighbours have been flooded twice in the last two weeks, causing lots of damage.  Anything that we can do to protect our home and not face the fear of floods, we will do.  Stopping burglars is easier than stopping water.  The three star plus sold secure diamond lock, Ultion, is the best way to secure your home against the most common form of break-in.  Most burglars do not want to cause a noise, they ai to be in and out of your property in minutes.  Changing your locks is the quickest, cheapest, most effective form of protection.

Police warn home owners to protect their homes from blow torched entry

Police have warned home owners this week about the dangers of their homes being illegally entered by their doors and locks being blow torched.  Burglars then take their possessions, their car keys and their family is left insecure. This is a method of illegal entry that Brisant Secure has warned against, as they have had more and more reports of this method of entry.    The report in the Sun newspaper this week states that, “the use of blow torches to break into homes can cause enough damage to snap or bend the lock or to remove it entirely.”  Police recommend that home owners protect their homes by fitting three star sold secure diamond locks.  This ensures burglars cannot access their home, their belongings or their family.  The Ultion lock will protect your home.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10285097/burglaries-blowtorch-uk-burglar-homes-locks/

Ultion will withstand a blow torch attack

Brisant Secure has tested Ultion, their best selling three star sold secure diamond lock, against a blow torch attack.  The photo attached shows that Ultion did with-stand the temperature of the blow torch and stayed in-tact and protected the door.  The inner core of Ultion is made of molybdenum, used by top engineers in the production of products that need to stay strong against heat and force.   When Ultion detects an attack, whether it is from a blow torch or another method, a hidden firing pin secures the central cam and stops the door being opened.  This still works against intense heat.

Police encourage home owners to fit a three star sold secure diamond lock

Police say that home owners can protect themselves by fitting a three star sold secure diamond lock, such as Ultion from Brisant Secure.  Ultion is approved by police. It has achieved the highest kite mark star rating and has been tested by locksmiths with the Master Locksmith Association and is accredited with the highest standard, sold secure diamond.

A good lock is not enough, for safety you need the best

For the safety and peace of mind, there is no point just fitting a good lock.  It is the lock that protects your home from burglary.  Members of Neighbourhood watch advise that the lock that makes the difference in the security of your home.  Tom from Scotland said, “many home owners are unaware that it is the lock barrel that offers them protection against burglary.  We have bought the Ultion lock for over forty houses on our estate to deter burglars.”

Nick Dutton, CEO of Brisant Secure said,

“Entry into people’s homes by blow torch is a method of attack we have heard of more and more.  We wanted to prove that Ultion would withstand a blow torch attack to give our customers peace of mind.  We were delighted with how Ultion performed in test conditions.  We know that home owners are safe with Ultion.”

What is Three Star Accreditation on locks?

Three star accreditation represents the top rated lock available for a homeowner to protect their home against anti-snapping and other forms of break-in, such as lock picking.  To guarantee the homeowner is protected against lock snapping, the cylinders need to achieve the top rating on the traditional TS007 test.  This is three star accreditation.

In addition, the lock can aim for the Sold Secure Diamond accreditation, which is a locksmith approved test against lock snapping.

Ultion has both of these accreditations.

What does a lock need to do?

Originally, locks were developed to keep stuff safe from people that wanted to take it from you.  It’s a basic human condition to want more and protect what you have.  Locks are there to secure doors and keep people’s homes safe.  85% of burglaries occur by the burglar breaking in through the door.  It makes sense to create a lock that is impenetrable, at least as far as we can.

Ultion is the latest generation of lock.  It was created by Brisant-Secure to ensure there was a lock that would survive under immense levels of stress.  At the end of the day, that is what a lock needs to do.  Locks must survive under duress.

What is Three Star PLUS?

Brisant-Secure, the inventors of Ultion, set out to over-achieve on all accreditation tests.  This is what they created.

Three Star PLUS means achieving the top rating of three stars on the TS007 durability cycle test.  Ultion did not just manage the 100,000 cycles needed to achieve the top three stars, at the time of writing it’s just passed 800,000!

Three Star PLUS means extra molybdenum in the core of the lock (an element stronger than iron) shielding 20 anti-drill points.  This lock is exceptionally hard to drill.

Three Star PLUS means a key that is 60% thicker than normal three star keys.

Three Star PLUS means also achieving the Sold Secure Standard. This is much tougher test designed and carried out by Master Locksmiths. Very few 3 star locks achieve this. Ultion achieves their highest standard. Diamond.

Three Star PLUS means a key light on your keyring which comes in all sorts of pretty colours!!

Why does Brisant-Secure want to out-perform the top rated tests?

Fundamentally, Brisant want people’s homes to be secure and stop others stealing your stuff.  Do you remember when energy ratings first came out?  Standards were set and many homes struggled to achieve an ‘A-rating’.  Now, as technology has improved we have A++++ ratings!

It’s the same with locks.  Ultion is not a lock that looks to achieve standards, it creates them.

Brisant didn’t wait, we wanted to set a new standard. Ultion, our Three Star PLUS lock, will keep your property safe.