In my 23 years in security I've never heard of this

[Damon23]

So a customer calls frantic. Says they got broken into and they got into their garage. The first thing I thought was they have openers so they must have cut out a panel. Seen that many times before. That is very noisy but they were home. 1am in the morning to be exact. The neighbors cameras caught three people walking around flipping door handles. When that proved a failure they went to my customers house. It showed them at the middle of the garage door and after a minute they lift the door slowly. They cleaned the dude out of tools and other things. They went thru the cars and got some stuff that one would have thought was safe in the garage. These people used a coat hanger which was found on the floor to reach in after they applied pressure to the top of the door to grab the pull string and release the door from the track of the opener. Needless to say I came home and cut ours short and am putting a wireless contact on the door. I've got ours set up to control with our cell phones so turning off the alarm when we are in the driveway is no big deal. Damn thieves, pretty ballsy but then again I guess they figured they'd be asleep and wouldn't hear it and they were right. The guy was PO'd. He said there was no way to know what all he lost. It took him 60 years to build up his tool collection, like most of us, and his insurance wants to know now what all was lost. I feel bad for him.

[Scott Liggett]

Won't work on my garage door. I had to hang on mine to get it to release.

[Monster]

This is a very common access trick. I removed the pull cord entirely and wrapped some wire around the release lever so it could not be flipped very easily. If power goes out and I need to open it manually, I just remove the wire and flip the release from the inside. Maybe not very convenient, but only takes a minute. This prevention end saved my Harley, because one night during a thunderstorm, some thieves cut a 1' x 1' "L" shape in the top panel at the middle like a can opener with tin snips or such and pulled it out to get access to my manual release lever. Surprise !

[JamesMayberryIII]

So a customer calls frantic. Says they got broken into and they got into their garage. The first thing I thought was they have openers so they must have cut out a panel. Seen that many times before. That is very noisy but they were home. 1am in the morning to be exact. The neighbors cameras caught three people walking around flipping door handles. When that proved a failure they went to my customers house. It showed them at the middle of the garage door and after a minute they lift the door slowly. They cleaned the dude out of tools and other things. They went thru the cars and got some stuff that one would have thought was safe in the garage. These people used a coat hanger which was found on the floor to reach in after they applied pressure to the top of the door to grab the pull string and release the door from the track of the opener. Needless to say I came home and cut ours short and am putting a wireless contact on the door. I've got ours set up to control with our cell phones so turning off the alarm when we are in the driveway is no big deal. Damn thieves, pretty ballsy but then again I guess they figured they'd be asleep and wouldn't hear it and they were right. The guy was PO'd. He said there was no way to know what all he lost. It took him 60 years to build up his tool collection, like most of us, and his insurance wants to know now what all was lost. I feel bad for him.

That safety/no power string manual popper is how thugs get into a garage.. First thing to go.. is that.. if no power, go to the human door.. and around..
I don't know why, they haven't made openers that also have powered locks, to lock the door in the tracks,
with so many homes the garage part of the home and once the thug gets in the garage they can shut the door and enter the house that the human door into the house isn't locked...
One reason my power opener isn't used.. so I can lock the door,

[Scott Liggett]

That safety/no power string manual popper is how thugs get into a garage.. First thing to go.. is that.. if no power, go to the human door.. and around..
I don't know why, they haven't made openers that also have powered locks, to lock the door in the tracks,
with so many homes the garage part of the home and once the thug gets in the garage they can shut the door and enter the house that the human door into the house isn't locked...
One reason my power opener isn't used.. so I can lock the door,

My garage door opener has locks on both the wall panel and the remotes.

[TheSilverBuick]

Cord or no cord they just have to hook the latch mechanism. I would think you'd need something a bit more durable than a coat hanger, but then again I haven't tried it. All my garage doors (I have four of them) have mechanical sliding locks on the sides as well as the electronic "lock" button for the motor. The two main garage doors on my house actually have a handle you can manually lock or unlock the doors from the outside too, with a key. Though honestly if I give the latch a quick hit with a baseball bat or such would probably disable the lock enough to override it with a screw driver.

At the end of the day, it's just to keep honest people and lazy thieves at bay. A dedicated thief will make it in regardless of your locking mechanism. How many garages have small windows? Easy enough to go through one of those. Even with bars on them, they make electric cutters that will snip them easily, etc. My money is on if the guys weren't successful with the hook and pull on the release, they'd been back later with another method. Rather kicking in a side door or going through a window, there is a will and way. Alarms and camera's are just added deterrents, but certainly no guarantee's.

[JamesMayberryIII]

My garage door opener has locks on both the wall panel and the remotes.

I haven't seen that.. what brand..
Admittedly my opener is at lest 20 years old.. It was here when I bought the house..

[JamesMayberryIII]

Cord or no cord they just have to hook the latch mechanism. I would think you'd need something a bit more durable than a coat hanger, but then again I haven't tried it. All my garage doors (I have four of them) have mechanical sliding locks on the sides as well as the electronic "lock" button for the motor. The two main garage doors on my house actually have a handle you can manually lock or unlock the doors from the outside too, with a key. Though honestly if I give the latch a quick hit with a baseball bat or such would probably disable the lock enough to override it with a screw driver.

At the end of the day, it's just to keep honest people and lazy thieves at bay. A dedicated thief will make it in regardless of your locking mechanism. How many garages have small windows? Easy enough to go through one of those. Even with bars on them, they make electric cutters that will snip them easily, etc. My money is on if the guys weren't successful with the hook and pull on the release, they'd been back later with another method. Rather kicking in a side door or going through a window, there is a will and way. Alarms and camera's are just added deterrents, but certainly no guarantee's.

A lock that locks the motor doesn't do much good when you pull the release to unhook the door from the drive system...

The They'll get it if they want it, I get that, I do.. but that is a different type thief, they are pro's they already know the loot they will be going after..
Most if it isn't easy in, or a known big loot to take.. they go to the next easier target.. it's not that they are so much lazy.. they just are not pro's and are only after some stuff to pawn to get the next fix..

Some areas have more of one type.. the big thing the last few years for "car guys" is shows.. as they are willing to tell as many as they can they did x and y and z themselves, and don't know whom is hearing this, and one snap of a plate gets them an address.. and off goes not the car, but all the tools and parts and such..

[Monster]

I forgot to mention that 6 of my neighbors also had their garages cut open the same night as mine and all their hand & power tools were stolen. I was the only one that they didn't get into. Thieves are generally lazy and if it gets too difficult, they just move on to easier pickings.

[pdub]

....and all the more reason garage doors with the cutesy little windows in a row on them, maybe lets a bit more light into the garage but it gives the thieves a plain view of where the unlock-handle string thing is, where to position the coat hanger to spring it open.

[yellomalibu]

Huh. Never thought about this.

For those of us who still have the manual lock on the garage door, a tiny, cheap, padlock fits in the little hole in the end of the lock bar. Perhaps just enough of a nuisance to make a thief give up and move on to easier pickings.

[pdub]

Damon, thank you SO much for posting this up. It's something I've actually forgotten about, something I intended to do something about. I've seen the video on YouTube a couple years ago, how to Jimmy a garage door, like an instructional course for dumb crooks. THANK you Sir, I went and did a little of something about it today, this afternoon.

Our garage door is like all others, here it WAS:




Yep, there it is. I had forgotten about that risk, and thanks again for briniging it back up. First thing to do is to take that string off of it. That makes it too easy.

We got a beer fridge for the garage a few weeks ago, a college dorm sort of thing, a small fridge, and it came with a few loose plastic pieces, and a cute little tiny ice tray for the cute little tiny freezer part of the fridge. And some other plastic parts and annointments, whatever. One of them, I have no idea what it was for, but I saved it. A plastic thing, don't know why I saved it aside.



I cut that thing in half.



Carved on it, it's a clothes hanger guard for the garage door. I'm satisfied, that'll at least frustrate amateur thugs enough to make them go away.

[Beagle]

... At the end of the day, it's just to keep honest people and lazy thieves at bay. A dedicated thief will make it in regardless of your locking mechanism...

roger that. Sad but true.

[pdub]

roger that. Sad but true.

Yeah, there's that, but odds are, there are less professional ones out there than dumb ones.

[silver_bullet]

reinforced upper door frame, HID light centered above door, and closed circuit security cameras have kept them at bay so far...when we get our next opener, it will be a torsion bar type with a side mount closer...:https://www.gatehousesupplies.com/Pr...4AEaAqNQ8P8HAQ