A Bloemfontein-based security company has reported an increase in house break-ins and opportunistic crimes across the Free State during the festive season.
Defensor General Manager Gavin Benbrook said many families returned from holidays to find their homes broken into, often because valuable assets were left unsecured.
“The trend this year, we have seen a marked increase of opportunistic crimes of people breaking into garages to steal garden equipment and stuff lying in the yards getting stolen that’s what we are seeing now and also the normal cable theft the guys guys are definitely after copper wire and so on. so they are pulling copper wire from the houses and piping and taps.”
While official festive season crime statistics have not yet been released, Free State police have also observed a rise in house break-ins.
Police spokesperson Motantsi Makhele urged residents to make use of the empty house register available at all police stations, to inform authorities when they are away.
“The other thing we have been advising is that during the time of festive season, we have at every police station a register called an empty house register – this is a register that people are utilising to patrol those houses where owners reported they are away on holiday. So most of the people don’t know about this, we have been trying to sensitise them that at each and every police station – there’s an empty house register and during the night when its quiet, the patrollers will take the book, they’ll go to the house they look around,” Makhele says.
He added that home security does not need to be expensive, but every household should implement some form of preventative measure to reduce the risk of break-ins.
Free State | Spike in house breaking and opportunities crimes:
