Tonight I switched the power off to the building besides the switch that powers the building alarm. Certain parts of the building you can have lights on and no one outside would even know.
This evening I spent a good few hours at the warehouse trying to secure the windows after we were informed someone has been trying to break in. Why tell me after 6pm on a Friday evening is kind of nuts in itself. Surely I have a right to know even if you are monitoring it. What was worrying when I arrived that section of the warehouse had the lights still on and should have been turned off plus the windows were not latched and it would not take much to bash in the burglar guards.
After doing a quick reconnaissance of the exterior what was noticeable was one pallet left to one side. If you turn it on it's side it can act as a ladder for someone who is more agile than myself. The windows are a fair distance up and the latches could not be reached by the outside, hence the need of the pallet. Also if you were needing to force in the burglar guards this would give you better access.
Industrial areas are a bit like a cemetery in the middle of the night because they can be quite spooky. This was 7pm in the evening however and even though it was pitch black no one would be trying anything now and would only happen in the small hours tomorrow morning. Your mind does play tricks on you because any noise no matter how small is amplified because your senses are on alert.
In the past I had noticed bricks from the wall being loosened so stuff is continuously happening and you have to pay attention. There are guards on site but they rely on the alarms and beams to be activated before they can react. If this is happening then whoever it is knows the layout and is bypassing the security beams.
I have some ideas how to fix this, but the fixes will not be implemented this weekend with what I have in mind. In order to understand the problem you have to think like a criminal and where they are trying to break in is the right spot due to it's weaknesses.
It was about 4 years ago when we apprehended an individual after the police had been called out and found nothing. He was unfortunate enough to walk past when I was driving through with my lights off after I had been parked up watching from a distance. The guards were implicated as they had been assisting him and the security firm was replaced.
Tonight I informed our armed response about the situation and they will have a car within striking distance for tomorrow morning just in case. We are all linked up to the alarm and I am hoping on the one hand it goes off so we can fix this small issue now and not let it drag on. My guess if it does not happen tomorrow morning then a long weekend is prime time because it could give them 2 days or 3 days access if they do not trigger any alarms.
The overall findings indicated the following percentages of crime committed during load-shedding: contact crime: 23.7%; property crime: 29.2%; and. provincially, on average, 25.7% of the sample analysed occurred during load-shedding
Load shedding does not help as we know crime rises over this 2 hour period of having no power and criminals can target areas working to a time table knowing exactly when the power is being cut off. Crazy really yet there is not much anyone can do about this except to be prepared. I am getting too old for this nonsense and need the quiet life.