Burglars know how easy it is to get into a home by a roll up garage door, and now you do too. As a homeowner you need to know that a burglar can open a closed roll up garage door in seconds, with just a small block of wood and a coat hanger, that’s it! This garage door safety release mechanism tripped from outside of your garage door with nothing more than a coat hanger. To open up a roll up garage door, all a thief needs to do is thread a coat hanger or hooked piece of wire through the top of the door and pull the emergency latch. By disengaging the safety release on your door the door can be rolled up to let a thief inside and then back down. While hopefully, you lock the door from the garage to your house, many doors aren’t built solid or have a . Even still, once a burglar has access to your garage they have plenty of time to lower your garage door and bypass the door lock without being seen. This done with picks, or using the tools that most of us have in the garage against us.
As you can see in the video below, it’s very easy to defeat an automatic garage door opener and break into a garage, especially when you have garage door windows that enable a thief to see exactly what they’re doing. Even without windows the task is fairly easy and done just on feel and knowing the mid-point of your garage is where the release cord . Check out the video to watch it in action. There are several simple methods to prevent this type of break-in. The most simple takes no more than a few minutes and very easy to do. Disable the emergency release lever. In most cases, this is the best way to keep someone from using the coat hanger trick to break into your house. Of course, it also means that you won’t be able to get in this way yourself.The cord attached to the emergency release lever is a minor convenience when you need to trip the lever. It is also something relatively easy to grab from outside using a clothes hanger. Lock the release lever. On some garage door openers, you can use a plastic cable tie or some thin wire to tie the level to the carriage assembly it to.
The lever always has a hole in it (to attach the release cord) and some carriage assemblies have holes you can run the cable tie or wire through. If yours doesn’t, you can drill a hole. The idea is that you just need to make it virtually impossible for a flimsy coat hanger able to pull the lever down, while, at the same time, allowing you to cut or remove your simple lock from inside the garage. You simply do this by using a zip-tie (or two), to lock the disengaging arm on the automatic opener. While this will prevent the bypass technique employed by thieves, the safety pull handle can still be yanked hard to break the zip ties in an emergency.JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - 1...2...3...4...5...6. As fast as it took for you to count to 6, a burglar can break into your garage.We were stunned by the video we found on YouTube showing how quickly someone armed only with a wire hanger can maneuver the wire through the door and hook the emergency release lever on the other side.Garage doors have levers that allow them to be opened manually in case power is lost.
Burglars, standing outside your garage, have figured out a way to use the hanger to pull down the release or to hook the red string that dangles from the lever. Once it is released, the garage door can be opened by hand from the outside.Sgt. Shannon Hartley with the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office says residential burglaries are a problem here in Jacksonville. He says there is no way of knowing how many of them involve the wire method, but says in the last 12 months there have been 142 burglaries, during which the crook entered through a garage door or a front porch. "We see very creative ways to commit crimes and new ways to commit crimes all the time," said Hartley.There are a few businesses that sell garage locking systems that prevent these kind of break-ins. We talked with the creator of the Elocksys Garage Door Lock. He recorded the video of how quickly a burglar can break into a garage door. He says people need to know how fast it can happen so they can protect themselves.
The garage door lock system he sells allows a homeowner to deadbolt their garage via remote each time they leave the house. It costs about $250. We found an inexpensive way to prevent this type of break-in. You can use a zip tie to fasten the emergency release lever to the garage door track to prevent it from being pulled open. A package of zip ties costs about $5 at the hardware store.Other suggests to protect your garage:Sgt. Catherine Payne with the St. Johns County Sheriff's Office tells us burglars will often look for garage door openers inside cars parked outside homes. They will break into the cars to get the openers knowing few people remember to lock the door that leads from the garage into their house. This gives burglars easy access to your valuables. Her suggestion is to always lock this door. Another tip, JSO Sgt. Hartley says when he worked in burglary, he was able to return many more stolen items if the victim had given him the serial number of the items that were stolen or if they had left a distinguishing mark on the item.
He suggests you take the time to write these numbers down and keep them in a safe place, just in case.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Police in Hanford, California, say they're seeing a disturbing trend. They have had a higher than usual amount of breaking into cars -- not to steal the cars, but to steal the garage door opener so they can get into homes.Most people would never think to leave their keys in the car but a garage door remote is the same thing -- easy access in a matter of seconds. Leave your window down or don't lock your car and it's an invitation into your home. Liz, a Hanford resident who didn't want to use her last name told ABC news in Fresno: “They were steps away from my home, my windows. That could have been me." Her car was broken into Saturday, the same night as her neighbor's car. Only in that case police say the 17-year-old crook used the garage door remote to get inside the neighbor's home.He stole electronics, jewelry and money.
He made a getaway in the family's car but later crashed into a light pole. The police found items recently stolen from other homes.Parking lotAnother victim was parked at a hospital, the thieves smashed his window and stole the garage remote. They went through the glove box and found his registration, which had his home address on it. The thieves ran off and went right into the home tearing it upside down while he was visiting at the hospital.Criminals are constantly thinking of new ways to get inside your home. You have to be on guard and be alert. Lock your windows and your doors. Don’t leave a garage remote where it is visible. Leaving your garage door open or unlocked is also an easy entry into your home. Once inside the garage, a burglar can use any tools you haven't locked away to break into your home, out of sight of the neighbors. Interior doors between the garage and your home often aren't as strong as exterior doors and may not have deadbolt locks.Instead: Always close and lock the garage door.