If someone wants something you have bad enough, they're going to get it. They'll drive a truck through your house to get in if they want to. People will kill you for your pocket change these days and not think twice about it.
Your real goal should be to try and keep burglars out. Motion sensors, LOUD Alarms with battery back-up, sturdy doors and good locks, and (a) big, mean a-- dog(s) are all good ideas. One well placed bullet will kill any dog, though, but it's still a deterrant to many. Killing a dog during a robbery adds some jail time in some areas.
As far as alarm signs, that's your choice. I'd put them inside a window near the door. My brother had his outside his house stolen.
Cameras that catch a crook in the act are the next line of defense, but you still have to find the crook to prosecute them. We often hear of someone being identified by being caught on camera. We never hear how many times is there a camera and either a decent image of the crook wasn't found or was so poor that it was of no use, or if the crook posed for a perfect 8 by 10 they still couldn't identify/catch them. Smart burglars cover their face.
If you want to go to prison, go ahead and booby-trap your house. Maybe you nail a crook, maybe you'll kill a girl scout tugging on your door too hard trying to sell you cookies. Either way you're going to do time. Even if it were a crook, a judge/jury could very well rule against you in a civil suit brought by the injured or the deceased's family, too.
Police now view burglary/theft as something that your insurance will cover, and that is pretty much the property owner's problem so long as nobody was assulted, raped, murdered, or etc. during the robbery. Unless the police physically capture a person inside your house or on your property (when seconds count, the cops are a half-hour away), in your stolen car or catch them with your property in their posession, you're out of luck as far as prosecution or getting your property back. If you think your house/shed, etc., will get the CSI treatment after you're robbed, you are very wrong. They might knock some donut powder around looking for prints. Smart burglars wear gloves.
A neighbor has had their wiring from their irrigation pivots stolen so many times, their insurance company told them that after the next theft they will no longer insure any of their pivots in any way, shape, or form.
In the 70's, after my uncle got cleaned out, he made up a couple of 8-track tapes with about 5 minutes per track of tv or radio noise, dogs barking, and him yelling and cursing stuff like "get the h--- out of here or I'm calling the cops". He'd pop them in when he went to work, about 20 minutes worth, and constantly looping, and swapped out tapes every couple of days. He said you could hear it 10-20 feet outside of the house. He never got hit again, and had no more door-to-door salesmen either.
The laws and courts in the USA are no longer in favor of those whose health or well-being is in danger and certainly not when personal property is being threatened. In fact, the deck seems to be becoming stacked the other way. They sure don't want you to protect yourself.
The day is coming when a crook will sue because when they broke a window, the glass cut them and some judge/jury will award the crook a judgement against the homeowner who didn't leave the door unlocked/open and the window manufacturer who dared to make glass sharp when broken. They might even make the homeowner support the crook's family until the crook is well enough to get back to work/able to rob people again.
AG
