Do Break-Ins Go Up When the Clocks Fall Back?

Mostly yes, and the reason is the dark, not the date. When the clocks go back on Sunday, November 1, sunset in Detroit moves from 6:28 PM on Saturday to 5:27 PM on Sunday, and by early December it is close to 5:00 PM. The hours when most people are still at work or driving home turn dark, and a dark house with an empty driveway is easy to pick out as empty. The fix is mostly at the doors: a deadbolt thrown every time you leave, a strike plate that holds, no key under the mat, and a few lights that come on before you get home.

Most of the figures you will see this week come from security companies and UK insurers, which report more burglary claims in the weeks after the clocks change. The independent research comes at the same effect from the other side: a 2015 study by economists Jennifer Doleac and Nicholas Sanders found that robberies fell after daylight saving time began in the spring, when evenings got lighter, with the biggest drop in the evening hour that gained daylight. Either way, the hour to plan for is the early evening, and in Metro Detroit that hour goes dark this Sunday.

Why the Early Dark Matters at the Door

A door is the usual way into a house, and a break-in usually starts with picking a house nobody is home in. From about 5:00 to 7:00 PM in November and December, a lot of Metro Detroit houses sit dark with the driveway empty, and the side door and the back door are out of sight of the street. That is the stretch of the day to get ready for.

A Lock Check Before Sunday

• Throw the deadbolt every time you leave. The spring latch in a doorknob can be slipped. A deadbolt with a full-length bolt cannot. If the bolt drags or you have to push the door to make it turn, the door has shifted, and our guide to a deadbolt that is hard to lock in the cold covers the fix.
• Check the strike plate screws. Most doors that get kicked in fail at the frame, not at the lock. The short screws that come in the box only reach the trim. Longer screws through the strike plate into the framing behind it make the door much harder to force.
• Do not forget the side door and the garage. Many Detroit-area houses have a side door by the driveway and a service door into the garage, both out of view from the street. Give them the same deadbolt and strike as the front door, and lock the door from the garage into the house too.
• Put a bar in the patio slider. The latch on a sliding door does not hold much on its own. A bar or a cut dowel in the track helps, and a secondary lock helps more.
• Bring in the hidden key. Under the mat, over the door frame and inside a fake rock are the first places anyone looks, and the dark gives them more time to look.
• Know who still has a key. If a former tenant, a contractor or an old roommate may still have a copy, rekeying makes the old keys stop working and lets you keep your hardware. Our post on whether to rekey or change your locks explains when each one makes sense.

Make the House Look Like Someone Is Home

• Lights on timers. Set a lamp inside and the porch light to come on around 4:30 PM, before sunset, not when you get home.
• Light the doors you cannot see from the street. A motion light over the side door or the garage door takes away the dark corner.
• Check the lock from your phone. A keypad or smart lock lets you see from work that the door is locked, and lock it if it is not. If you have one, our post on whether smart locks work when the power goes out covers what to expect in a storm.
• Packages. A dark porch makes a delivery easy to take. Have packages held, or sent where someone is home.

When to Call a Locksmith

Call us if a door only has a knob lock and needs a deadbolt, if a deadbolt will not throw all the way, if a strike plate needs to be reinforced, if you want the locks rekeyed, or if you want smart lock installation before the dark evenings set in. We are a residential locksmith working across Detroit, Dearborn, Royal Oak, Troy, Warren and Southfield. If someone has already broken in, call the police first, then call us to secure the door.