With the holiday shopping season in full swing, the Strasburg Borough Police Department wants to make sure our community is taking steps to thwart off “porch pirates." 

Porch Pirates are people that unlawfully enter a property with the goal of stealing newly delivered packages from the doorstep of a private home before the items have been secured.  Some sources indicate that 1 in 5 Americans fall victim to porch pirates!  Follow these simple steps to reduce your chances of being their next victim:

1. Home Security

• Install a security camera or doorbell cam by your front door
• Post a warning sign that your front porch is under surveillance
• Install motion-censored outdoor lighting

2. Alternate Shipping Destinations

• Ship your packages to a location where you’ll be during the day, such as your work address
• Take advantage of secure location services offered by package delivery companies such as Amazon Locker, the UPS Store, etc.

3. Customize Delivery

• Customize home delivery to fit your schedule, using services such as FedEx Delivery Manager
• Provide special instructions, for example, “place package on back porch”
• If you know you won’t be home, redirect packages to an alternate location, for example, a vacation house

4. Enlist Help from Neighbors

• We are still a community here in Strasburg.  Ask your neighbors to check for and store your packages during the day or when you’re on vacation and offer to do the same for them!

But if you are the victim of a porch pirate, report it to us immediately!  Even if the value of the stolen item is low, reporting the problem can help us to uncover larger theft operations and alert us to potential criminal patterns in our neighborhood.