When Cathy Korinek and her family went to Colorado on vacation a few weeks ago, they asked a neighbor to pick up their newspaper and mail and they left on a light in their home.
Like countless homeowners before them, the Korineks, of Hoffman Estates, went away expecting to return to find that their home was just as they had left it.
“I definitely thought what we did was sufficient,” Korinek said recently.
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Time was, most people thought that was enough. You could create the impression you never left and then rest easy. You might be hundreds of miles from home, but who was to know?
But it wasn’t enough for the Korineks. Not only was their home broken into, but the invaders stayed four days and went on what police described as a drug- and alcohol-induced binge, leaving the house a shambles. Damage to the home has been estimated at $100,000.
“It’s a little rougher world out there now,” said Midlothian Police Chief John Bitten. “Some of the burglars are a little bolder, a little more clever.”
To combat that, homeowners and tenants are growing more vigilant when they leave their houses unattended. More people, it seems, are investing in security systems. Some are using semiprofessional house-sitters, whose product seems a direct response to crime, to occupy and guard their residences when they cannot.
“The times kind of show what needs to be done,” said Alenka Andruss, whose Evanston business, Pet Watchers Inc., increasingly is keeping an eye on homes as well as animals. “We come, check the house out, pull up different blinds, change lights-everything to make it look like people are still home.”
Others rely on a neighborhood watch, a more organized extension of the notion that home protection can be found in the scrutiny of a few sharp-eyed friends.
“When we go away,” said Deborah Loeber, who participates in a neighborhood watch in Carol Stream, “we tell all our neighbors to watch for anything suspicious. We tell them, `If you see anybody leaving the house with the TV, call the police.’ “
FBI statistics show that across the country nearly 3 million homes and businesses were burglarized in 1992. Total losses were $3.8 billion.
Nearly 2 million of those burglaries were residential, the FBI said, and on average each cost homeowners, tenants or insurance companies $1,215.
In the nine-county area around Chicago, there were 85,148 burglaries reported in 1992. Nearly 50,000 of those occurred in Cook County, the Bureau of Justice Statistics said.
Nationwide, burglary is down about 6 percent from 1991 to 1992, suggesting that the perception of crime is far worse than the reality and, perhaps, prompting extreme responses.
Home security and alarm companies view FBI statistics, no matter which way they go, and horror stories like the Korinek family’s as veritable advertisements for their wares.
They say sales of burglar alarms and security systems, some of which allow a monitor at a remote site to speak and hopefully scare off an intruder, have risen steadily as crime has become a factor in the lives of more and more people.
“I don’t know if you can rely on your neighbor anymore. They can’t see everything,” said Chester Donati, president of DMC Security Services and a former Markham police officer. “The police can’t be there every minute either.”
Small police forces, like Bitten’s in Midlothian and the South Barrington Police Department, do make an effort to actually prevent burglaries by offering residents what their larger counterparts cannot: regular home observations.
In South Barrington, where the houses cost upward of $1 million, the department’s nine officers go on patrol with a list of vacationing residents who request a house check. Three times a day, officers check doors and windows, walk around the house and peek inside.
“It gives them a sense of security,” South Barrington Chief Tim Lonergan said of the service his officers have been providing for more than a decade. “It enables them to see the benefit they do get from their taxes. Fortunately, we are of a size that we can do it.”
A sense of security may be all these spot checks provide, although Orland Park Police Chief Tim McCarthy said they also help to lower burglary rates. But the chances of catching a burglar in the act, as those in the security business note with some relish, are slim.
“I don’t think,” Bitten said, “that we’ve happened on a burglar yet.”