An alarm would seems like the perfect first step. A monitored alarm (ADT for instance) would be even better. This wouldn't change the aesthetic of the house, but would greatly increase security and safety.

Motion sensor lights would also help deter.
And maybe a large pitbull.

An alarm system is always a good choice. We had a break-in a couple of months ago and opted to have some non-ugly bars put on our back windows (which is how the burglars got into our place).

I think the most important thing is just to make your house unappealing to burglars. Keep it locked up tight when you're not home - windows and all - and pull your curtains so potential thieves cannot scope the place out. If it is going to take serious effort to get in, they'll probably go looking for an easier mark.

Lemonbutter, pitbulls aren't usually good guard dogs. they would much rather lick your face than bite it off.

This is supremely unhelpful, but that house/front garden is adorable.

Eliminate the hiding places. Even if they are pretty.

Make friends with the neighbors and agree to watch out for each other's places a bit. (Not to be responsible, but to at least to dial 911 if something weird seems to be happening, rather than "minding their own business".)

Talk to the local police. Sometimes they will do a walk through and give advice. If not, they at least should know that the house is vulnerable.

Plant thorny bushes under windows low enough to climb through.

Bright yard lights, although those can be seriously annoying to neighbors, so aim them carefully and NOT at somebody else's windows.

Dog. (I have heard the idea of putting a heavy run chain and large sized water dish by the door even if you don't have a dog, to give the illusion that you do.)

Loud siren or air horn that goes off if the door is opened incorrectly.

Lots of options, but the very first thing is (sorry to say) get rid of those morning glories, and maybe even the "gate".

The pitbulls in my neighborhood might want to lick you, but they sound like they want to eat your face off. That's probably enough to help scare away a would-be burglar.

We had a police officer come and do a free "security audit." Here are a few of the things he said to do (which, of course, we did). All of them were inexpensive and easy to do.

Use very long screws-- at least 3 inches-- to screw all exterior door frames into the framing around them (otherwise, they are much easier to kick in). Have two locks on all windows (supplement the primary lock with whatever clamp-on type locks work with your particular windows). Put a secondary lock on any sliding glass doors. Trim shrubbery away from windows and doors so it can't conceal a person. Make sure you have deadbolts on all exterior doors, including the door to the garage (and lock them).

And-- "do the five." Make sure you know the neighbors on either side of you and the three across the street. Have their phone numbers and/or email. And go out of your way to ask someone if you can help them if you see unfamiliar vehicles or people around your neighbors, especially if you know they are not home. Watch and let neighbors know if you see people knocking or ringing at their door when they are not home. And try to get descriptions of people and vehicles that do that. It might sound paranoid, but lots of burglars case houses just by knocking/ringing at the door.

Install a camera that is connected to your lap top so where ever you are, as long as you have your laptop or possibly even on your phone, you will know if something is out of the ordinary at home. You can then call the police instead of betting your neighbors will.
I hate gated windows but if you can find pretty ones like another post suggested.
Just a note on home security systems: If an alarm is trigger on a home system, the police will respond to that LAST because so many owners trip they own alarms by accident.

A dog, no question.

Like others have said, the motion lights at night and the bushes for hiding gone in front of the windows. Also, you can go on ebay and buy alarm company signs and stickers...

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=security+sticker&_sacat=0&_odkw=security+sticker&_osacat=0

...as you can see, there are TONS. I like a Beware of Dog sign on the gate maybe, too. The chain and dog bowl is genius! My husband's friend that lives in Baltimore City has multiple security cameras around his house hooked to his computer. He's on a fixed income so I'm sure you could find a set up relatively cheap. Sorry it happened. I would be too creeped out!!

Leave a radio on every time you leave the house. We keep ours near the front door on a talk radio station. If we lived in a house, we'd keep it near the back door.

There was no detail on how the burglar got it so I'm going to suggest double dead bolt locks. As for the dog suggestion - WARNING SAD STORY - a co-worker's dog was shot in a burglary. A barking dog can be dealt with.

Dogs may help and then again they may not. Friends of mine with three dogs had their house broken into. The back door was smashed in. They found out about the break-in when a neighbor saw the dogs running free in the street and called one of them at work. The dogs did nothing to stop the intruders. Quite a bit was stolen and the kitchen was completely trashed with food and trash thrown everywhere.

I have to agree with sherrybinnh--the first thing to do is reduce/remove everything that shields the house from the street. That's what made this house an easy mark. Perhaps just reducing the vines by half would leave a good view of the house from the street.

Please do not get a dog just to keep the burglars away. Dogs need care and interaction.

Was this a daylight burglary, while the owners were away at work? Usually even on a quiet street there is someone home during the day. Cultivate that person as a friend.

I'll bet your thief knew you. Based on your home, I'm assuming you're not wealthy enough to have tons of diamonds and gold and impressionist paintings at home (neither am I!). Thieves are practical and opportunistic. They need a reason to choose a house over another, and want to know that the risk of being caught is pretty low. Dead bolts and window locks or geese and dogs are your first level of defense. The next is bars on your windows and doors. The next is very noisy alarm, and the next is a silent one that sends in the cops.

My neighbors have instructions to call 911 if they hear my dogs going ballistic during the night when I'm at work. They normally don't bark until they hear me coming in. I also confine them while I'm gone, partly to prevent distructive behavior, but also to protect them in case of a home invasion. I'd rather lose all my stuff than my dogs. I know someone whose dog died protecting their TV.
Also, in some states, Indiana being one of them, a 'Beware of Dog' sign, if you HAVE a dog, is considered an admission of liability that you HAVE a dangerour dog, & you & the dog could be in deep trouble if the dog does bite someone, burglar or not.

I just moved to a new rowhouse and realized that my backyard was the least secure of all my neighbors - low fence and far from the street lamp. I debated it, but I finally decided to install window bars on the three windows facing the yard. I can't see them from the inside and unless you are close to the windows, it's hard to see them from the outside. Including the cost of the handy man who installed them, the whole project was $150.

I love, love, love having an alarm system. I live in a kind of marginal neighborhood and basically everyone on my block has been broken into at one point or another. When my house got broken into, the (deafeningly loud) alarm must have scared the theives off -- not a single thing was taken. None of my other neighbors have been so lucky.

Also, it gives me huge piece of mind when I'm traveling. If anything happens, I get a call. I know there's no risk that the house has been broken into and remained opened.

I think the initial cost was about $150 (get the sales person at the end of the month, when they're trying to make their sales goals, and you'll have better bargaining power). It's been about $40/month after that. Worth every penny for me.

Most insurance companies will give you a discount to offset the monthly monitoring fees of an alarm.

It's also a good idea to keep ladders locked up instead of stored in the yard or the side of the house.

I hope they're making burglar bars with a way to release from the inside. Hearing that people are installing them on houses again (I thought that trend had passed) makes me nervous. Nothing would be worse than to be trapped in a burning house by bars. There's nothing that could be stolen from my house that would make that risk worthwhile.

DOGS ARE NOT SECURITY ALARMS. Getting one for that purpose does little if nothing to help (as evidenced by my neighbors - two vicious sounding dogs and they got their house got broken into twice last year). Get a dog because you want a lifelong friend.

As for other solutions, outdoor motion lights do a lot. I have heard some people use motion activated sprinklers (which sounds like lots of fun, but potentially ineffective and probably wasteful.) There was a post on here not too long ago about setting up inexpensive surveillance inside your house using webcams.

The other half of my duplex has been robbed about ten times in the past 7 years. My half has not. Some conclusions the previous tenant and I have come to: leave windows uncovered to expose intruders, but carefully arrange furniture so that easy to pawn electronics are never visible from the outside. Have a dog or an alarm. Use the second window locks mentioned above. Window bars are ineffective unless they are on all reachable windows. They put window bars on the window that was broken in and the next time the thief just went to a different window. Security doors with a keyed deadbolt are awesome. The thief broke in the window just fine, but left blood kicking OUT the security door with his loot. In that time, if they'd have had an alarm, the cops would have been there to bust him. You can probably leave your plants if you are willing to pay for an alarm.

Lights! Motion sensing floods pointed at the places someone might try to gain access to your house.

I have AutoChron timers on all of my exterior lights. I have them set to go on around dusk and stay on all night, but you can set them to go on and off several times during the day. They fit right over your wall switch and and if you need to turn the light on when it's off, it doesn't affect the on/off cycle. I have also set them up on interior switches when I travel. I also have lamps on timers as well.

http://www.buyautochron.com/

I had an attempted break in years ago and as a result I did get offers for discounted alarm systems after filing a police report.

Reddit did an
Ask Me Anything with a retired cat burglar. He recommended window laminate over anything else.

Our house was broken into a couple of days after an open house (we were trying to sell at the time). I don't believe it was a coincidence. After the burglary, I really wanted a dog (I love dogs anyway!) but couldn't justify it since we are busy and gone most days. We didn't get an alarm although I really wanted one but then figured it was just for my peace of mind and probably useless in really preventing. So we have gone the neighbor route. We know our neighbors and one who lives across the street is a retired woman who is a great look out. She calls anytime she sees anything remotely suspicious.

I am thinking that an alarm company sticker would be a good idea though!

I've always thought the rabbit ears on our TV set (visible from the front window) were a good deterrent--there's nothing of value in here, folks.

If you don't want to commit to window bars for safety or aesthetic reasons, you can install screws in your window frames to prevent them from being opened all the way. It might not be the sturdiest solution, but if the window is visible from the street or adjoining backyards would-be burglars might not want to stay outside fiddling.

Apartment Therapy has done a few run-downs of lower cost security options, some of which implement new(er) technologies: see them here and here.

To the posters who think a dog is good for security - you are wrong.
I used to think that having 3 dogs - even greyhounds who are the friendliest canines on the planet - would be a sufficient deterrant to a would-be thief. That is, until the day my house was broken into while I was at work (I supposed I am partially to blame - the kitchen window was very nicely hidden by two huge mature spruces and me, being such a tree lover, could not bear the thought of trimming the branches).

I am willing to bet that my dogs gave the intruders (it was a pair of teenage boys) a warm welcome with big grins and wagging tails. I am sure they were happy to have some entertainment.
When I got home I almost had a heart attack because there were no dogs waiting for me behind the front door. My first thought was that I am getting senile and that I had forgetten to let them back in from the back yard after their last potty in the morrning.
I ran through the living room (the shortest way to the back door) and only after I found my dogs in the back yard, wet as rats (there was a thunderstorm in the afternoon) all of sudden it dawned on me that my TV was no in the living room (I was still standing at the back door, it was some sixth sense that was telling me that the TV and VCR were gone). I was fortunate that not much was stolen and mainly that nothing happened to my dogs. The thieves probably thought it would be safer for them if the dogs were not in the house. Fortunately, the yard had a 6 ft wooden fence so the dogs could not escape.

how about some advice for renters. most of this stuff you can't do unless you own the place.

booby traps might work
dogs how ever are infallible. a criminal with less than half a brain still know enough not to screw with a dog

Gael,

As a renter i bought these alarm door stops off of amazon. They work by ringing extremely loudly whenever anyone pushes in the door. For me its mainly a piece of mind factor, which allows me to sleep after moving from a high-rise to low-rise. But its efficient. That combined with telling my neighbors to call the cops if the hear a loud, irritating sound emanating form my apartment.

Beware of Dog signs may take care of some burglars, if they are opportunists they will go down the block to a home w/o a dog - or pretending to have one. Motion sensor flood lights, interior lights on timers. Window coverings you can close when you are not home so it's difficult for someone outside to see in. Park in a garage if you can so it's not obvious whether you are home or not. windows with 2 locks, locked. Prickly bushes under each window.

Monitored alarm -- The one I had installed on my 75-year-old cottage is hardwired at the two doors, but all the windows have wireless sensors. It made it extremely easy to install since the alarm guy only had to go into the attic for the two doors and the big siren amplifier. I was even able to simply pull the wireless window sensors off and put them back up after I replaced the windows a year later.

I agree with having a police officer do a walk through. I had a family friend who was a retired officer come scout out my apartment. He had some really great simple ideas that I, as a renter, could implement (most have been mentioned here, but radio by the door, timed lights, screws/dowels above windows.)
Best bet is to get to know your neighbors as well. I broke into a neighbor's when I heard her fire alarm going and put out a kitchen fire before it could spread. The woman is elderly and I was worried she had fallen (she hadn't, she'd just left a pot on the stove with the gas still on...) But I still keep an eye out if I see any sketchy people lingering around porches in the neighborhood, especially after seeing how easily I broke into her place. Having neighbors who care about you is generally going to be helpful.

I just got done with a house sitting gig and the owners had what @dcmandy referred to: a door stop alarm. You just turn them on, wedge them under the door and if someone forces the door open, a button is pushed and an ear-piercing alarm goes off. I believe these are them...

http://www.amazon.com/GE-50246-Smart-Home-Alarm/dp/B0000YNR4M/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1348151232&sr=8-1&keywords=door+stop+alarm

You can't put them in place if you are leaving the house, but they use them for overnight security.

Wearing wife beaters in the front yard with a chest length beard seems to work for me, I leave my windows and doors unlocked in Long Beach.

you can buy a camera system that feeds into your smartphone at costco.

Look up the Discovery TV series It Takes a Thief -- a retired burglar breaks into (consenting) people's homes, while they watch on closed-circuit camera. Then his buddy, another retired burglar, does a security upgrade and he tries again. It's entertaining enough and there's a ton of good information.

Also worth noting: tons of those people had dogs, and 0 of those dogs (that I saw) were a deterrent. Worst case, burglar opens the fridge and the dog's his best friend.

Here's one I think no one has mentioned: don't hide your key outdoors. Thieves know where to look. We had a woman breaking into houses this way all over the neighborhood. She dressed and appeared just like the average person living around here (slender blond in North Face jacket and yoga pants), so she would search all over for people's keys and apparently not raise anyone's suspicion. In broad daylight!

One homeowner caught her on camera using a system he bought at Costco. Soon her picture was all over the neighborhood blogs.

The other thing is that there is nothing about being a thief that prevents someone from otherwise being a pleasant person: they might love kids and dogs even as they steal to support their meth habits. This is why having a dog is not a deterrent. A few milkbones shoplifted from a nearby store and a friendly demeanor as they come in will fool the dog into thinking this is an unexpected visitor, not an intruder.

I agree with the general consensus: get an alarm system, clear foliage away from doors and windows, do not get a dog just for security, keep electronics out of sight,fortify doors and windows and get to know your neighbors. I also put up removable tinting on the window my cat likes to sit in during the day so she can see out, but people cannot see in.

I hate the look of window bars, but needed a way to have an open window in the main bedroom of our one-story house. I commissioned a local artist to create a custom steel screen. It was a pricey option but worth it. Take a look here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nuncia/8011336708/. I am saving up to install a similar treatment for the sliding glass door in another bedroom.

Park a car in the driveway that has an NRA sticker on it and another sticker that says "I <3 My Pit Bull."

No, seriously. The appearance of something off-putting is as effective as the thing itself. That's why people use fake alarm-company signs; fake video-surveillance cameras; a dog dish that says "Killer," a sign in the garage that says "I shoot first and ask questions later," etc. Most burglars are opportunists and will pass up a place that looks dicey.

I love the "wife-beater and chest-length beard" tip. ;-)

If you like to leave a ground-floor window open at night, you can find beautiful vintage window-bar "cages" in antiques and salvage stores and on ebay. Many have lovely iron work and nice patinas - and sometimes even a shelf for plants.

Our neighborhood has had more and more break ins recently: we've been lucky so far.

First, we bought a simpli safe security system. It's super easy to set up and use, and it isnt crazy expensive. It's very user friendly and customizable. I'd highly recommend it over ADT. ADT's customer service was a disaster for us; simplisafe on the other hand is always polite and ready to help. Simpli safe comes with a main keypad, to type in your code, as a base system. We also got a few motion censors to put around the house, and two keychain attachments with a "panic" button on them. We also got a "panic" button that attaches to the wall to put in the bedroom in case of an emergency.

2- We trimmed down all of the tall bushes and shrubs around our house to get rid of all hiding places.

3- We now have really good hiding spaces inside our house for valuables.. think of stashing things in rooms OTHER than your bedroom, as the bedroom is often the first place a thief will look.

4- We adopted a pit bull (or "pibble") from Carolina Care Bullies. We'd wanted a dog for awhile, and when the break ins in our neighborhood got serious, we decided it was time to adopt. Pit bulls are extremely intelligent, highly trainable, loving and GOOFY dogs...he is first and foremost our companion, and he just happens to LOOK like a "scary" dog.

5. Don't wait until the next break in to get to know your neighbors. Take one afternoon and go door to door writing down their names and phone numbers. My husband is trying to get the "lights on" initiative going in our area: when you see a suspicious person, first the police are called, and then you call your neighbor and they turn their lights on, call THEIR neighbor, and so on. All down the street, the lights start coming on and the suspicious person realizes it may not be a great idea to burglarize the area... its just one easy way of showing that community watch is present.

This is a good subject and helpful and so sorry to hear that they were robbed. I know this is also off the subject and not very helpful, but the home and yard are so lovely. It's exactly the type of home and garden that I wish they would feature in the landscaping/gardening section here. So pretty!