POLICE have urged vigilance amid revelations more than two houses a day have been broken into in Wagga in the past two months.
Statistics revealed by Wagga police on Thursday show 37 homes had been broken into since the start of the month. In March, 55 homes in Wagga were robbed.
Inspector Dale Holmes from Wagga police wants to see residents on high alert to guard against the ever-present threat of break-ins.
“Sometimes being in a country area, people do get lax sometimes – it’s really important people do realise crime does occur in Wagga,” he said.
“People just need to be vigilant, (crime) does happen and it’s up to the community to help us solve those crimes.”
Inspector Holmes said residents needed to make their homes as difficult as possible for thieves to hit as part of the fight against these widespread crimes.
“We need to ‘target harden’ – when you leave your house, lock your front door, lock your windows, do everything you possibly can in terms of making your house as secure as possible,” he said.
Adding concern to the epidemic of break and enters are instances of the robberies occuring while people are at home or returning to their properties.
Christian Bradley, whose Ashmont property was broken into last week, feared potentially armed thieves were still inside his house when he came home to find his front door wide open.
He was wary of the potential for his house to be targeted and took all the precautions he could, but that didn’t save his house.
“People think, ‘it won’t happen to me, I don’t have anything’, and then it does,” he said.
Mr Bradley had his home locked up tight – but that still wasn’t enough to keep it safe. He suspects the thieves used a screwdriver to pry open a window that had a bit of wood chipped out at the side.
This month, thefts from cars are up drastically. Just halfway through April, there have been 70 reported thefts – already higher than the March total.
Stolen cars remain a major concern for police, with 33 reported since the start of March.
