On Fri, 12 Sep 2008 07:50:05 -0700 (PDT), tonyjeffs
wrote:

Our house is on a corner. At the side of the garden is a privit hedge,
and at the end is a stone wall. The corner where the two meet is very
vulnerable to burglars, and there've recently been 3 in the street.

So... we need either barbed wire (joking) or a nice thorny bush to
make that access route less attractive.
We have a thorny bush elsewhere in the garden. The leaves are red on
one side. It'd look nice against the green privit. What is it?
What alternative bushes would do the trick?
Is it a good time to plant?

Thanks

Tony

I'm sure there's shed loads of useful prickly plant advice already so
here's my take on it:

What you can do is make sure your house isn't the one without the
alarm!
Also give your windows and frames a good clean so that if you have
SOCO out after a crime they can get good clear fingerprints.
Relevant to the garden - finely raked soil under windows that takes
good shoe impressions is useful too.

Our homewatch info says most are opportunist through open windows so
always lock all windows and doors. If you see people lurking then ring
the police. They won't mind. (Don't ring 999 unless you see something
actually happening though - ring the main number rather than going
through to a local office which is almost certainly unmanned for most
of the day. (eg: i'd ring 872 5050 which goes to the main switchboard
rather than ring Chadderton local office as I know my odds of getting
a pcso in there are slim to zero.)
That number will be in your phone book. Make a note of it somewhere
obvious if you don't already know it.
Also get to know your local pcso and get their collar number (it
starts with a 6!) and then when you ring up you can ask if they're on
by giving that number and then send them a message if they are.

If you've had 3 break ins then it's time to mobilise the neighbours
and start a home watch so people start taking notes on the dodgy
people lurking about (height, coat colour, hair colours, shoes etc)
and ringing it through to the police.
You can get a lovely pack from the homewatch man with a UV marker pen,
stickers and advice leaflets. Ours also do an over 25s sticker for the
cars.


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