You Hear A Burglar Downstairs — What Should You Actually Do?

You Hear A Burglar Downstairs — What Should You Actually Do?

It is three o’clock in the morning and something wakes you up. At first you are not even sure what it was. Then you hear it again. A bump downstairs, perhaps the sound of a cupboard opening, footsteps, or something being moved that definitely should not be moving.

Within a few seconds your brain has gone from half asleep to completely alert.

Someone may be in your house.

It is one of those situations people occasionally imagine, but very few of us actually have a clear plan for what we would do if it happened. Unfortunately, without a plan, instinct can push you towards exactly the wrong decision. Some people will want to creep downstairs and investigate. Others will grab whatever happens to be beside the bed and go looking for the intruder.

In most cases, neither is a particularly good idea.

If someone has broken into your home, your first priority should not be protecting your television, laptop or car keys. Your first priority is making sure you and the people you care about get through the situation safely.

First Of All — Don’t Go Looking For Them

This is probably the single most important point.

If you genuinely believe there is a burglar downstairs, you do not need to go downstairs to confirm it.

Films have given us the strange idea that the natural response to a suspicious noise is to slowly walk through a dark house saying, “Hello?” while investigating every room. In real life, that simply risks turning a burglary into a confrontation.

You don't know who is downstairs. You don't know whether there is one person or several. You don't know whether they are carrying a weapon, whether they are drunk or on drugs, or whether they will panic when they realise someone is awake.

Even if you are bigger, stronger or trained in martial arts, none of that makes confronting an unknown burglar in the dark a particularly attractive proposition.

Stay upstairs if you safely can.

Call The Police As Soon As You Can

If you reasonably believe somebody has broken into your home, call the emergency services.

Try to speak quietly and clearly. Tell the operator that you believe someone is inside your house, give your address, explain where you are in the property and tell them whether anybody else is in the house.

If you know something useful — perhaps you heard a door being forced, can hear more than one person, or can see somebody from an upstairs window — mention it. Don't put yourself at greater risk trying to gather additional information.

You do not need to become an amateur detective.

Your job is to stay safe and let the police deal with the intruder.

Get Everyone Together If You Safely Can

If your children are sleeping in another room or another family member is elsewhere upstairs, your natural instinct will understandably be to get to them.

Whether you can safely do this depends entirely on the layout of your home and where you believe the intruder is.

If everyone is already together, great. Lock or secure the room if possible and stay there.

If you need to move to another bedroom, listen carefully before doing so. Do not wander through the house unnecessarily and do not go downstairs unless there is no safer alternative.

Having thought about this before anything ever happens makes an enormous difference. If you have children, for example, it is worth knowing in advance what you would want them to do if they ever heard somebody breaking into the house at night.

The middle of a burglary is not a great time to invent the plan.

Lock The Bedroom Door If You Can

A locked bedroom door creates something extremely valuable: time.

Most burglars are not entering houses because they want a confrontation with the occupants. They generally want property and an easy escape. If they discover people are awake and the police have been called, many will want to leave rather than start forcing their way through locked internal doors.

Even an ordinary bedroom door can provide a useful barrier.

If the door locks, lock it. If you can safely place a substantial piece of furniture against it without making lots of noise or trapping yourself unnecessarily, that may provide additional delay.

The important point is that you are creating separation between yourself and the intruder rather than voluntarily removing that separation by going downstairs.

Should You Turn The Lights On?

There is no single answer that fits every property.

Turning lights on may make it obvious that the occupants are awake, which may persuade a burglar that it is time to leave. On the other hand, moving through the house to reach light switches would obviously be a terrible reason to expose yourself.

If you can switch lights on remotely, from your bedroom, or through a smart-home system, that may be useful. The same applies to a burglar alarm.

You might also choose to make it clear that the police are being called.

Something like, “The police are on their way,” shouted from behind a locked door may encourage an ordinary burglar to leave quickly.

You do not need to start threatening them.

The aim is to make staying in the house increasingly unattractive.

What About Your Car Keys?

One common reason burglars enter occupied homes is to steal car keys.

If you hear someone downstairs and realise your keys are sitting in the kitchen, don't go down to rescue them.

Cars can be replaced.

People cannot.

It can be incredibly frustrating to lie upstairs knowing someone may be taking property you have worked hard to buy, but physically confronting a burglar over a vehicle or television is a dreadful trade-off.

If the intruder takes the keys and leaves, the situation has ended without anybody being injured.

That is still a successful outcome.

Should You Escape Through A Window?

Possibly, but only if doing so is genuinely safer than staying where you are.

If you live in a bungalow and have an easy ground-floor exit that takes you directly away from the intruder, leaving may make perfect sense.

If you are upstairs, climbing out of a bedroom window and risking a serious fall probably does not make much sense when you are secure behind a locked door.

Think in terms of risk rather than dramatic escape.

A safe exit is excellent.

An unsafe exit is simply replacing one danger with another.

If you do leave the property safely, move away from the house and wait somewhere secure for the police. Do not stand outside confronting whoever eventually emerges.

What If You Are Already Downstairs?

This is a different and potentially much more dangerous situation.

Perhaps you went downstairs for a drink before realising someone had entered, or you encounter the burglar while returning home.

Your first objective should still be escape rather than confrontation.

If you can move safely towards an exit, do so. Put distance and obstacles between yourself and the intruder where possible and get outside or into a secure room.

Do not deliberately block their escape route unless doing so is necessary to protect somebody. A burglar who believes they can run away may do exactly that. A burglar who feels trapped may become far more dangerous.

Sometimes the safest thing you can do is give them a clear route out of the house.

What If You Come Face-To-Face With The Burglar?

This is the moment everybody worries about.

If you unexpectedly come face-to-face with an intruder, try not to turn the situation into a contest over property or pride.

Keep some distance if possible. Do not move towards them unnecessarily and do not make sudden aggressive movements. If there is a clear route for you to escape, take it.

If they are simply trying to leave, let them leave.

Trying to physically restrain somebody because they have stolen your laptop can transform a relatively straightforward burglary into an extremely dangerous fight.

You also have no idea what they may have in their pockets.

If They Demand Property, Think Very Carefully

If an intruder threatens you and demands your wallet, keys or other possessions, the priority is staying alive and uninjured.

That does not mean there is one perfect response to every situation. Human behaviour is unpredictable, and circumstances vary enormously.

But property is normally a terrible reason to risk a serious physical confrontation.

Handing over car keys does not mean the criminal has “won”.

It means you have chosen not to gamble your life over a car.

Insurance companies exist for a reason.

What If They Come Towards You?

There is an important difference between somebody stealing property downstairs and somebody deliberately trying to reach you or your family.

If an intruder begins forcing their way into the room you are sheltering in, the threat has obviously changed.

Continue communicating with the emergency operator if possible. Put physical barriers between yourself and the intruder and look for a safe escape route.

If somebody actually attacks you and there is no safe way to escape, then protecting yourself or another person may become unavoidable.

That is very different from deliberately going downstairs looking for a confrontation.

Self-defence should be the last part of the plan, not the first.

Be Particularly Careful About Weapons

When frightened, people sometimes imagine grabbing a baseball bat, knife or other object and going downstairs.

This can make an already dangerous situation much worse.

Introducing a weapon into a confrontation does not guarantee that you will control it. The intruder may take it from you, may have a weapon of their own, or may respond to the increased threat with far greater violence.

The smartest weapon in many burglary situations is actually a locked door, a mobile phone and several metres of distance.

None of those look very impressive in an action film, but they are considerably better at reducing your chances of getting seriously hurt.

Your Dog May Complicate Things

Dogs can be useful deterrents, but they can also make an active burglary more unpredictable.

A barking dog may persuade an intruder to leave. However, if the dog runs downstairs and confronts them, you may feel an overwhelming urge to follow.

That is understandable, but remember that following the dog may put you directly into the situation you were trying to avoid.

Again, there is no perfect answer that covers every home and every pet. The point is simply to think about the possibility beforehand rather than assuming that a dog automatically solves the problem.

Don't Chase Them

Suppose you hear the front door slam and look outside to see someone running away.

Let them run.

Do not chase them down the street.

At that point, the immediate threat to your household may already be ending. Chasing the burglar simply brings you back into contact with them, except now you may be outside, possibly barefoot, half asleep and without any idea where their accomplices might be.

Try to remember useful details instead.

Which direction did they go? What were they wearing? Did you see a vehicle? Was anybody else waiting outside?

Give that information to the police.

You do not need to personally complete the arrest.

Once They Have Gone, Don't Immediately Search The House

Even if everything suddenly becomes quiet, be careful about assuming the burglar has definitely left.

There could be more than one intruder.

If police are on their way and you are somewhere secure, it is generally sensible to stay there and follow the operator's instructions rather than wandering around checking every room.

Likewise, avoid unnecessarily touching things afterwards. Doors, windows and objects the intruder handled may potentially be useful to the police.

The temptation will be to immediately assess what has been stolen, but your possessions can wait a little longer.

The Emotional Reaction Afterwards Can Be Surprisingly Strong

Even if nobody is harmed, being burgled while you are inside the house can be deeply unsettling.

Home is supposed to be the place where you feel safe. Discovering that somebody has deliberately entered it can leave people feeling angry, jumpy or unable to sleep properly for some time afterwards.

You may also replay the situation endlessly in your mind.

“What if I'd gone downstairs?”

“I should have done something.”

“I can't believe I just stayed in the bedroom.”

Try not to judge your actions according to what would have looked brave in a film.

If you stayed away from the intruder, protected your family and allowed the police to deal with the situation, you did something.

You made the sensible choice.

Make A Plan Before You Ever Need One

A simple burglary plan can be surprisingly useful.

Know where your phone is at night. Make sure you can easily give somebody your full address in an emergency. Think about which room would be safest if somebody entered downstairs and how you would reach children or vulnerable family members if necessary.

Check whether bedroom doors lock properly. Make sure everyone knows not to wander downstairs if they hear an intruder.

You don't need to become paranoid or turn your house into a fortress.

You simply need to spend five minutes thinking through a situation that would be extremely difficult to think through clearly at three o'clock in the morning while your heart is hammering.

Final Thoughts

If you wake up and genuinely believe a burglar is downstairs, the temptation to investigate can be powerful. You may feel that it is your house, your property and your responsibility to do something.

But going downstairs looking for an unknown intruder is rarely the clever option.

Stay somewhere secure if you can, get other members of the household to safety, call the police and put barriers and distance between yourself and whoever has entered the property. If there is a genuinely safe escape route, use it. If the intruder takes property and leaves, let them go.

A television can be replaced. A laptop can be replaced. Even a car can be replaced.

The objective is not to defend every possession in your house.

The objective is that when the sun comes up, everybody who went to bed there the night before is still safe.

Article written by Jimmy Rose lifelong martial artist & BJJ enthusiast.