Safe At Home Britain
For British homes, British locks and British doorsteps

You lifted the handle. Did you turn the key?

Three plain handbooks on keeping burglars and bogus callers away from a British home. What to check, what to say at the door and what to do first, written for people living on their own and for the family who worry about them.

  • Written for wooden doors with a Yale and a mortice, plastic doors where you lift the handle, letterboxes, patio doors and wheelie bins.
  • Built on the four habits the police-backed advice recommends, which a university study measured at 49 times the protection of a home with none.
  • No weapons, no sprays, no confrontation, no monthly contract.
  • Large print. Print it at home and walk round with a pencil.

All three handbooks in one download: $47, paid once.

Get all three handbooks

PDF, yours straight after payment · 30-day refund · or try the free check first

258pages across the three volumes
57things you can do tonight
34points on the walk-round checklist
3volumes, 8 printable pages
How a house gets picked

He is not a mastermind. He is walking down your road looking for the easy one.

The usual burglar is an opportunist. The crime prevention bodies that work with the police say he looks for four things: a home that seems empty, little obvious security, a door or window left open, and a way in where he will not be seen.

Every one of those is something you can change with a habit or a few pounds.

Here is the part nobody tells you. Researchers at Nottingham Trent University found that four plain measures together, windows locked, a lamp on a timer, doors properly deadlocked and an outside light on a sensor, give a home 49 times the protection of a home with no security. The same research found that burglar alarms overall confer no protection.

And it found that homes with one adult had half the level of those four basics.

That is what these books put right.

Free, here on the page

Walk your own house

Try this before you buy anything. No email address, nothing to sign up for.

Start with the door

If you have a plastic front or back door, the kind where you lift the handle:

  1. Stand inside. Shut the door and lift the handle. Do not turn the key.
  2. Push the handle down.

The door opens. Lifting the handle is not locking. Neighbourhood Watch says so in as many words: you must lift the handle, turn the key, and take the key out.

If you have a wooden door, open it and read the metal plate on its edge. You are looking for the Kitemark and the number BS 3621. If it says "3 lever", your insurer may have something to say about it.

Now the rest. This is the 34-point checklist from Volume I. Walk round and tick what is right. Whatever is left unticked is your list.

0 of 34 ticked
From the pavement
Front door
Back and side
Windows
Lights and signs of life
Keys, help and the phone

The checklist tells you what to look at. Volume I tells you what you are looking for, why it matters and what to do when the answer is no: which lock, which mark, which words to say to the locksmith, and what to do tonight while you wait.

Get all three handbooks · $47
Money gets spent in the wrong order

The camera comes last. The key comes first.

When people get worried they buy the expensive thing first. A camera. An alarm with a monthly bill.

These books go the other way round, and say why.

I do not tell you it costs pennies. Most of it costs nothing because it is a habit. Where a job needs a tradesman, the book says so.

What you get

One purchase. All three handbooks.

One download Cover of The Safe At Home Handbooks

The Safe At Home Handbooks: all three volumes

258 pages, eight printable pages.

  • Locked Up and Settled
  • Not Today, Thank You
  • The Quiet Night Plan
  • The eight printable checklists and cards
$47
Get all three handbooks

One payment. No subscription. PDF sent straight after payment. 30-day guarantee.

Where the advice comes from

Nothing in here is one man's opinion about locks

The facts in these books come from published British guidance: Secured by Design, which is the official police security initiative; Neighbourhood Watch; Age UK; the Master Locksmiths Association; Citizens Advice; Ofgem; and gov.uk.

The standards are named so you can read them off your own door: BS 3621, TS 007 three-star, Sold Secure Diamond, PAS 24, TS 003, TS 008.

Before a word was written, nearly three thousand comments under home-security videos were read through, to find out what people in your position actually ask. The chapters answer those questions, biggest first.

The habits come down to four: notice what a stranger notices, give nothing away, check before you trust, and be dull.

What is inside

Every chapter, volume by volume

Cover of Locked Up and Settled

Volume I: Locked Up and Settled

  1. How a house gets picked, and how it gets passed by
  2. "The police won't come": the four habits that do the work
  3. Is my front door any good? The wooden door
  4. The plastic door: lift, turn, take the key out
  5. The letterbox, the keys and the glass
  6. Back doors, patio doors and French doors
  7. Windows: locked, and you can still breathe
  8. Looking lived-in: lamps, timers, curtains and the light over the door
  9. No dog? What does the dog's job instead
  10. Who's that at the door? Stop, Lock, Chain, Check
  11. The password that stops a bogus gas man
  12. Safe from burglars, but can the ambulance get in?
  13. The right order: tonight, this week, this month

Plus: Walk your own house, the one-page checklist. Who to ring, the page to keep by the phone.

You will know:
  • What the stamp on the edge of your door means, and what your insurer expects it to say.
  • The mark to look for on a plastic door's lock, and the sentence to say to the locksmith.
  • Where to keep your keys so they cannot be hooked through the letterbox and you can still find them in the dark.
  • Which windows to lock and which one to leave open for air.
  • Where to put a timer so it does not show an empty armchair.
  • The answer to the outside-light argument.
  • What does a dog's three jobs if you cannot keep one.
  • The four words to use at the door, and the password scheme your gas, electricity and water companies run for callers at your home.
  • How to be locked in at night and still reachable by an ambulance crew.
Cover of Not Today, Thank You

Volume II: Not Today, Thank You

  1. The back garden: fences, gravel and thorns
  2. The side gate, the back alley and what is left outside
  3. Alarms and cameras: what they do and what they do not
  4. Neighbours: one number each way
  5. "Have I been marked?"
  6. The man who noticed your roof: rogue traders
  7. Fake police, fake bank, fake delivery
  8. Workmen, cleaners, carers and "a friend of the family"
  9. Going away: the house that still looks lived-in

Plus: the Door Card and the Away Card.

Cover of The Quiet Night Plan

Volume III: The Quiet Night Plan

  1. The ten-minute lock-up: your night round on a card
  2. If you hear something: stay put, lock in, ring
  3. Ringing 999 when you cannot speak
  4. What the law says, in one calm page
  5. Coming home to a break-in, and the week after
  6. Flats, sheltered housing and rented homes
  7. Papers, valuables and who knows where things are
  8. For sons and daughters: helping a parent without frightening them

Plus: the Night Round Card and the Family Page.

All three volumes and the eight printable pages come together in one download.

Get all three handbooks · $47
Why it will not go stale

Standards, not shopping lists

There are no shop prices for named products in these books, because prices change and you check them. What is printed instead is the name of the standard to ask for, and that is stamped on the product itself.

The habits do not date at all. A locked window was a locked window in 1975.

30 days. Read it, walk the house, then decide.

Read the book. Do the free checks. Walk round with the checklist.

If it has not shown you one thing about your own house worth knowing, write within 30 days and your money comes back in full. Keep the printed pages.

Before you go up

Ten minutes, tonight

Lock the back door properly. Take the key out of the front. Leave one lamp on. Put the phone by the bed.

Then read the rest tomorrow with a cup of tea.

All three handbooks in one download: $47, paid once.

Get all three handbooks
Questions

Before you buy

Is this written for British homes?

Yes. Wooden doors with a nightlatch and a mortice lock, uPVC and composite doors, letterboxes in the door, patio and French doors, 999 and 101. It covers England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and says so where a rule belongs to one nation only.

Does it involve weapons or confronting anyone?

No. It is deterrence and early warning. Pepper spray, CS spray and Mace are prohibited weapons in this country and nothing of the kind is recommended. If someone is breaking in, you stay behind a locked door and ring 999.

Will it make my home burglar-proof?

No book does that. It makes yours the house that gets passed by, which is the thing you can actually control.

I am not handy. Can I still do it?

Most of it is habit and needs no tools. For the fitting jobs, the book tells you who to ring, including the Age UK handyperson services, and what to ask for.

I live in a flat, or I rent. Is it any use to me?

Volume I is mostly habits, a plug-in timer and locking what is already there. Flats, sheltered housing and rented homes have their own chapter in Volume III.

I am buying it for my mum or dad. Is that sensible?

It is written to be printed and gone through together. The walk-round checklist takes about as long as a pot of tea. Volume III has a chapter for sons and daughters.

What do I get, and how?

All three handbooks and the eight printable checklists and cards, as PDF, in one download, sent straight after payment. Large print, A4, made to be printed at home. No app and no login to remember.

Why is the price in dollars?

The checkout takes payment in US dollars. Your bank or card converts it to pounds at the day's rate.

Is it a subscription?

No. One payment.

What if I do not like it?

Write within 30 days for a full refund.