Building a fence around my property...

All - Approximatley two weeks ago my vehicle was buglarized and they was tried to steal it. Then two weeks ago they broke into my house and stole valuable things. I submitted to my homeowners association documents/permission on getting a fence build around my property to protect it and my family. The funny thing is I asked the person who handles that what is my building line. She told me that it was the end of my driveway. This was before I submitted documents. Then after I sent that I found my house specs that the building line is actually the front end of my house. So now I'm thinking that they are not going to aprove the fence. First is because no one over there in the neiborhood has a frence around the front of their house. Second because of the building line and last but not least they are pretty stricked.

I mean didn't they just passed the law to where you have the right to protect your property? If they tell me know which I know they will, who can I go to.

I talked to the person in office and she stated the building gates around the community is pretty expensive and they if they do everyone's dues will go up!

Please help!

Wow -- Thanks Brad for the feed back! What I did was turned my garage into a poolroom, so spent quite a bit of money on that and I didn't want to get rid of taht so soon. I just turned this around about two years ago, but you're right about illuminating the property. The funny thing is they unscrewed my light bulbs in front of my house next to my garge. They did my neighbors the same way and tried to steal their truck. Yes I do plan on putting a security system (Video Surveillance)on the home. Another thing you're right about is the fence, I do see someone trying to hide waiting to brak-in. That's very good feed back. Thank you sir!

I have two boys and I keep that put away, that is a good ideal but you have to go through a lot if you'd did something like that. LOL Thanks!

Brad - I have that too and they still broke in and got away before myself caught the incident and then I called the police and they were there in less then five minutes.

Your honor, i was in fear of my life when i pulled the trigger...

While our Arch Comm specs do not allow fences towards the front of the house, it's just in line with county building codes. Even if we didn't have HOA specs on it, the local zoning codes would not allow it.

I also would not take anyone's "word" on where my property line is.

Spend the $$ it takes and get a legitimate survey done.

Then, once you have that, you can work better with the Arch Committee to see exactly where/how you can lay out your fence.

Good luck.

I've been in the security business for over 22 years but do not live in TX.

I have had several cumtomers over the years that have had cars stolen, houses broken into and the resolve is not a fence. Think of this, you half to maintain a fence: (weeds, appearance, trees, bushes, and the most important it's height.

A burglar does not care about a fence unless it's 12 feet high and you put barbed wire on it, oh ya they'll just cut an hole with electrical pliers.

The best advice is like the other person said. Lock you car, remove valuables from the outside, don't leave ladders or other climbing objects laying around. Make sure your doors and windows are locked at all times when you home, mostly at night. If you have window stoppers installed use them if you want to open the windows for fresh air. Install motion flood lights high enough not to allow access which may be excessive if on the top of the house. A home security system is a good product if installed and used properly. If all you can afford is a cheap system for FREE with 2 doors and motion plus moniotirng. Save your money.

The system must be designed to work even when your home and protect doors and windows from vandals. Motion detectors if zoned will also help. (basement on 1st floor off during the day. You can even have a shunt switch installed to deactivate and activated the motion at will vs turning on and off the alarm every time you want to go in the basement. But most of all have sirens installed inside and out with a flashing strobe outside facing an neighbors house. Have phone lines moved inside or purchase a cellular back up in case you phone lines are cut mostly if you have VoIP.

Have a plan of action layed out if the alarm goes off: ( were do we go, what do we do, cell phone, gun, your childrens safety must come first and they need to know without hesitation what to do even in the middle of the night. (PRACTICE)

Chances are you'll never have a nother problem, but why wait to find out.
Good luck!

Mary, Michelle, Bryan and Roy -- Thank you all for responding to this issue. I just logged back in. I'm reading all of this teary eyeded becuase of the great responses! I just feel like there are still people out there that cares. Pretty much everyone is saying a fence is not going to help protect my property. Yes it is very expensive ($4,000)! This would have included a sliding gate with two remote controls for me and my wife. Brian did stated that it was pretty expensive, the contractors came out yesterday (4/30). Yes I did have an expensive workout equipment inside my SUV and I had it covered up to where you couldn't see it. The theives took their time and was looking inside everyones cars and I guess when they got to mine, they were like man he got something big back there. So like what Bryan/Roy was saying take everything out even if you do hide it because I guess theive are anxious and with the gas prices going up. I guess they are trying to find anything and sell it for money.

I forgot to mention. The best way to stop a thief is to make everything obvious. Don't give them a reason to look around. What you see is what you get. I'm glad we could help.

PS A good security system should cost around $800.00 - $1,400.00 plus $24.00 -31.00 per month monitoring fee. Try to pay as little as possible I have some customers paying as low as $18.00.

We're having a rash of gas thefts lately with a new (at least to me) M.O. the idiots are drilling holes into the tanks of large SUV's and small trucks to drain gas out. I can hardly wait for one of the morons to set off an explosion trying this; hopefully before they reproduce, sort of Darwinism at its best.

Also I had a friend who drove a wrecker and when he would take it home at night someone would siphon the gas out of the five gallon "jerry can" he kept on the back to assist people who had run out. Repeated attempts to find who was doing it failed so one night he dumped five pounds of sugar into the can, filled it with gas and left it as usual. Next day his neighbor's car wouldn't run and that was the last problem he had with that happening.