In the past two months, my place out in the country has been broken into a half dozen times. We've lost over $20,000 worth of off road vehicles and farm equipment. A couple of carefully placed .45" holes in the intruders' radiator finally convinced them to quit frequenting my property. Score? Bad guys: $20k, Matt: took bad guys' fancy $20k vehicle prisoner, which is now impounded.
This property has been broken into several other times over the past 20 years, but nothing approaching this last time. In the process, and mostly as a result of this recent bout, I've learned a few things about securing rural property:
1> You cannot totally secure any property. Period.
2> Equipment kept at such property should be insured. (I wasn't, and I'm still kicking myself.)
3> Even the largest, nastiest looking Master lock you can by can be easily cut with a large pair of bolt cutters. Heavy 3/8" chain can also be cut, if the bolt cutters are large enough.
4> If you chain your gate(s) the chain and lock are not the weak link. In my case, the thieves cut the 5/16" bolt on one of the gate hanger. From there, they just lifted the gate right off the hinge pin. The best you can do to prevent this, is to cut some bushings out of water pipe to cover the bolts, and when installing them, use loads of red Loctite, or come back and weld the bolts. (For that matter, you could also weld the gate hangers to the gate.)
5> If your gate it too secure, they'll just cut the barbed wire and enter there.
6> IR game cameras work pretty good, if carefully placed, say at the entrance to a dwelling or barn, are generally not detected. (Hehehehehe.)
7> A non-infrared camera with automatic flash, mounted a few feet above convenient reach will distract the intruders, allowing a person to carefully slip around from behind and either disable their vehicle (say, by cutting the tires), and/or flee as they try to destroy or steel the camera.
8> Just because you THINK the building cannot be seen from the entry point or access road doesn't mean someone won't find it. It's just a matter of time. If you can see a power line entering the property, they know SOMETHING is back there, and will investigate on foot.
9> Illuminating the building if it's in plain view will help, but you may also need to take steps to better secure your electric feed entry box, which is often very close to the front gate. If not, they're remove the small lock on the panel and turn off the main power company disconnect switch. Or, they're unscrew the front panel of the box and do the same.
Keep in mind that even if you can prevent entry at the gate or fence line, if they're desperate enough, they'll drag your stuff out to the fence and lift it right over. It's more work, but I'll be darned if I haven't had it happen.
I think the whole thing comes down to making sure your property is plain and simply harder to breach than that of your neighbors. Let's face it, this type of person is looking for an easy score, otherwise they'd have a real means of support like the rest of us.
Your mileage may vary.
-Matt
