Having your house burglarised can be an incredibly distressing experience. Here are three things you can do to protect your home from burglars.

Install a home security system

Most home security systems include security cameras, motion sensors, a high-decibel alarm and a control panel. Together, these components help to secure the entry points to a property, detect and alert homeowners to the presence of intruders, and scare away burglars before they have a chance to ransack a property.

Having a home security system installed can be expensive and time-consuming. However, this type of system could save you a lot of money and stress in the future by helping to drastically reduce the likelihood of a burglar gaining access to and stealing your most valuable possessions.

It can also provide you with peace of mind when you're away from your home; you'll be better able to enjoy your travels if you know that your house and its contents are protected from thieves.

Invest in visual deterrents

Burglars do not usually target random properties; instead, they look for ones which have no obvious signs of features which might make it harder for them to gain entry or that might draw attention to their presence.

As such, you can significantly reduce the likelihood of a burglar attempting to break into your home simply by adding a few visual deterrents to the exterior of the property.

You could, for example, plant thorn-covered bushes directly underneath the ground floor windows and add a climbing plant with thorny stems and foliage on the walls leading to the windows on the upper floors (to deter burglars from trying to scale the walls). The sight of these prickly barriers could be enough to discourage a would-be thief.

Additionally, it might be worth hanging some wind chimes outside your windows; most burglars are well aware of how loud these items are when touched and as such, are likely to avoid trying to rob a house which is decorated with them.

Purchase a garage door closer

Most homeowners make sure lock the doors and windows to their homes every night. However, few are quite as careful about keeping their garage doors locked.

You might, for example, run into your garage to get your gardening tools or bicycle, and completely forget to shut the door on your way out. Likewise, you might 'temporarily' open the door to get something out of your car that's parked inside, only to get distracted and leave it open when you go back into the main house. Unfortunately, this provides burglars with an extremely easy way to gain entry to your home.

If you're naturally absent-minded and don't feel that you can get into the habit of locking your garage door, it might be worth purchasing automatic door closer device; this comes with a timer and can be set to shut your garage door after it has been open for a specific amount of time.