That's an awful story, and it's natural to feel frightened. But try to remember how very rare heinous crimes like this are.

It's just too easy to hear about something like this and imagine danger lurking around every corner. Definitely not the case.

That is a horrific story - when it happened last fall,everyone here was stunned. The town it occurred in is a sleepy, 'idyllic' town, not a place one would expect something like this to happen. Fortunately, if the suspects are convicted, they will spend a very long time, if not their entire lives in jail - what a waste of humanity (if they possess any!).

As far as locking your breaker box - you might want to check with your power company to see if that is something you can do. You have dogs that would sound an alarm if someone strange came onto your property - don't you? I'd also have a cell phone in case a phone line was cut. That and neighbors who won't hesitate to call the police if they see something odd are your best bet - unless you own a gun, know how to use it, and are willing to use it.

It is a horrendous story. But like Joann said, it's incredibly rare. You only know about it because "if it bleeds, it leads" on all news broadcasts. You've probably got a better chance winning the lottery than having a home invader target you.

So put a lock on your circuit breaker box, if it makes you more comfortable. But if someone is going to do this to your household, a lock probably won't do more than slow them down a few seconds.

And if you do this, make damned sure everyone in the house knows where the key is in case you need to shut the power down quickly (much more likely than a home invasion).

Our home security system is monitored, and if our electricity goes off, the alarm company calls us within minutes to verify that everything is OK.

Several years ago we were replacing all of the electrical outlets and light switches in the house. Hubs went out to the main box and turned off the electricity, and a few minutes later the alarm company called! It totally hadn't crossed our minds to call them to let them know we'd be shutting off the circuits for a while. It was comforting to know that they monitor that sort of thing, though! So, every time since then that we've shut off the electricity (even if in just one or two areas of the house), we notify them.

Apparently, if they see that someone's electricity has gone out, they check other homes in the area that they also monitor, to see if their service is on. If they can see that it's a widespread outage (like when a vehicle hits a pole and knocks out service to a neighborhood), they don't worry about it. But when it's just one house - boy, they're on it right away.

I worried about stuff like that, too, Haley, when we lived in FL in a tight-packed neighborhood. Right there on the side of the house, the power and phone line boxes, vulnerable and frankly, very inconvenient when you want to flip off a breaker for a minute.

For this house, we had the power box put inside the garage. The phone company insisted on putting their box on the side of the house, and I did worry about that, especially because I was home alone a lot and didn't have a cell phone.

I would worry about locking the power box in case of emergency. If you had an electrical problem and needed to kill the power to the house, having to stop to open a lock could really cause trouble. If there was a fire and the FD wanted to kill the power, they'd have to cut the lock, first. It would probably be a little expensive, but an electrician could probably move that box inside for you, on the other side of that wall. Would that work?

Personally, I think I would do better in my pitch-dark house than a burglar or home invader would. Plus I know where all the flashlights are, not to mention other "tools". ;)

Not that rare. I spent this summer taking care of an 83-year-old woman after she suffered a home invasion and assault. There aren't words to describe what this assault did to this gentle woman's mental state. And she lived in a "very nice" neighborhood.

Another reason to always have your cell phone fully charged. Today many have landlines that are hooked up electrically and won't work if the lines are cut.

I didn't realize that a circuit breaker box could be installed outside- ours is inside. And when we put the addition on the house we had our telephone line buried and it comes into the house underground. But we left the old phone line that is next to our electric meter in place so that it would look like our working phone line in case someone wanted to sever it. That's highly unlikely but it was a simple precaution suggested by the phone installer.

We have an alarm system too- not necessarily because we fear we might be burglarized but primarily for hard wired smoke detectors and heat sensors that will alert the alarm company if we're not home.

If someone wants to break in there's little you can do to stop them. We follow the suggestions of the police department- make the house less burglar friendly. Keep shrubs around the house trimmed low, leave lights on both inside and outside, use the locks on windows and doors and have a dog that barks!

We feel somewhat safe from this happening. Our circuit breaker is in the garage, and we always keep the garage door locked. We always habve lights on at our house. If all else fails, our bedroom door locks from the inside. And we keep our cell phones (all 4) plus our land line fully charged. And we have a brave dog.

Isn't it a bit inconvenient to have the circuit breaker outside? When you blow a circuit, in the middle of cooking Christmas dinner, you have to stop, put on your coat and head out to turn it back on?

I'd have to have that moved inside pronto, if it's allowed by code in your area. For my own convenience, for the reason you stated re: crime, and because it's just too tempting for pranksters to access it. I wouldn't feel comfortable with just a lock--that can be cut by anyone determined to get in, and would just be a major annoyance when you need to quickly access the box in case a breaker goes. Also, what if you need to have work done to the box--upgrading, installing a new circuit, etc--with the box outside, the electrician can't do the work on a rainy day. If it's inside, he can.

My husband works for the utility company--think I'll ask him tonight if he's ever seen a circuit box on the outside of a house--I know I've never heard of it before.

Azzalea, a lot of older homes have the breaker box outside. When we bought our current home, it was out on the back porch; we paid to have it moved into the basement after we closed.

Not sure why anyone ever considered that a smart thing to do, but for our neighborhood, it's pretty commonplace.

A breaker panel may be in the house,the garage or basement. But the disconnect (sometimes referred to as the main breaker) is outside adjacent to the meter so that emergency personal can cut power to the house before entering during a fire or the like. This is code so you may not move it just because you want to. You need to be able to cut the electricity from outside the building just like you do the gas and water.

You can put a lock on it in most areas because emergency crew carry bolt cutters. Of course criminals can too.

But Joann and Mary C are right to remind us that these crimes and most horribly heinous crimes are rare when you look at the big picture.

If someone wants to get to you they will. Alarm systems,locks and bars will not do a darn thing to save you if someone is really intent on harming you. Fortunately the average person is not the target for that someone.

True home invasions are seldom random. Simple burglary may be a random act of opportunity but home invasions are calculated and done with purpose. Most are well-planned choosing the target beforehand.

Thanks everyone for your replies!!! I'd better check our codes to see if I'm allowed to lock it. (IF we decide to lock it since some of you have some very valid points).

Our neighborhood is nice, but it's in a not nice town. In the 4 years we've been here we've had 3 reverse 911 calls letting us know there were criminals on the loose and being chased by helicoptor or dogs. When we first moved here, 19 cars were vandalized on our street and 2 doors down there was a break in. Once some teenagers rang our doorbell at 11:00 pm, ran and when DH and I went to the door, we saw a camcorder across the street on the ground RECORDING us! We grabbed it and all the kids came out of hiding. We reviewed the tape and saw that they had been army crawling in our grass and looking in our windows. Thankfully they were terrified we'd call the cops, but truly they were piddling their pants and shaking- they were so scared. It's been interesting! We're moving soon, LOL!

Anyway- thanks again for the responses! Lots to consider- gotta run!

Blessings,
Haley

Azzalea- I'd never heard of that either. As for having it "outside adjacent to the meter so that emergency personnel can cut power to the house before entering" as Wildchild said- I think here they just call the electric company and they shut if off. When you ask your husband about external circuit boxes will you ask him about that too please? Thanks.

It'a common in Southern California to see circuit breaker boxes on the sides of houses.

I think here they just call the electric company and they shut if off

When the electric company shuts off power to a home they use the same exact main breaker to do it. If someone doesn't pay their bill for instance they will pull the breaker, pin it shut and tag it. Ever have to call the electric company for service? Yes I can just picture the ER crew waiting on hold while the house blows up!

There is one exception. The new "smart grid" system some power companies are pushing for is allows the electric company to monitor usage at each smart meter. This is a new age boondoggle that would allow the power companies to monitor your power usage remotely and tell you when you can use them. I'd rather take my chances with the break-in than have big brother monitoring my usage every time I do a load of laundry.

If you have a meter then there is a breaker/disconnect/shut off near it. Our circuit panel is inside. Our meter and disconnect are outside. Some have entire circuit panels outside also but the disconnect MUST be at or near the meter.

It's important for everyone to know where the main shut-offs are for their water,gas and electric.

My meter is outside of the house, 30 feet away, at the bottom of the service pole. There's no breaker at ground level - I think that there's one at the top of the pole that the service people turn on or off with a pole.

The service box, with the main shut-off switch is in the basement, and the service box with the bank of circuit breakers governing all of the circuits is right beside it.

I hope that you won't get terribly worried about the possibioity of a home invasion - they are extremely rare.

ole joyful

Sorry, meant to get back last night, but things got crazy around here.

Asked DH about the outside circuit breakers. He said he'd seen only a few (actually, not circuit breaker boxes, but FUSE boxes) and they were located at an apartment complex. Which, I suppose makes more sense than on a house. At an apt., management might need to access the box when the tennant wasn't home. DH agreed with me, that it would be extremely inconvenient, because you wouldn't be able to replace fuses in the rain for safety reasons.

As to some sort of switch inside/near the meter for turning off service? Not here. The service is turned off at the meter by unlocking the ring, and removing the meter in a certain way so as to disable the connection. He has heard of the switch configuration, but it's not used in our area.

Meters and power company practices do vary greatly from one area to another.

I was thinking about the exterior circuit box situation and wondered if in some cases it was done that way on older homes that were retro-fitted with electricity after they were built. Perhaps that was the easiest way? As to new homes with that arrangement? Sounds like a contractor taking the easy (cheap) way out. Definitely something I'd want changed at the earliest opportunity--for security, convenience and most importantly--safety reasons. One should NEVER touch any outside electrical connection in wet or damp weather. My husband, a professional with 40 years experience and loads of safety equipment, wouldn't touch a meter or exterior circuit box in the rain. I hope, anyone here who has such a box, will be very, very careful and not let anyone change a fuse, flip a breaker switch if it's raining or the box is damp. Safety first.

In our town you are not allowed to put a lock on the "breaker" because it denied the fire department access (which is stupid, they would just wack it with an ax if need be). Those shutoffs are standard in this area, they are right with the meter.

I know the case you are talking about because it's in the newspapers here (it happened in NH, I live on the NH/ME border). We are having an alarm with battery backup installed shortly. Most people also have exposed phone/cable lines which can be cut. Keep your cell phone by your bed. But honestly, I don't think electricity/phone made a difference in this case, it wouldn't have prevented them from coming in (they pulled an AC out, the same way my previous place was broken into). The woman was sleeping in bed, she was in the dark already. We looked into have the circuit breaker and/or the phone lines come up through the garage and the utilities wouldn't allow it.

My DH and I had an argument about this case because he said it was the reason I should be prepared to use a gun, and I pointed out that she was asleep and never had a chance to get a gun. Even a loaded gun in her nighstand wouldn't have helped her, she never had time. A totally tragic case, a thankfully rare.

We used to live in a house (in MT) built in 1952. There was an exterior electrical box with a main power shut off on the back of the house but if we tripped a circuit, the breaker box was in the stairway so that portion was indoors. We also had a separate box in the basement but I think that was for the furnace or possibly the 220 for the oven, I don't remember now.

Well, I actually ran into our PG&E reader today as she was making her rounds. I asked her about locking the box and she said, "YES! Lock it!" And went on to show me how my panel was set up and that emergency services could easily get into the panel if needed by taking off the cover. (Which I guess only they know how to do). I am feeling a lot better now. There are just too many teenager pranksters roaming around at night, which is really what I'm concerned about. Not really the violent break-in. We do have our (big) dogs and have our cells near us at night. :)

Thank you, everyone- I've learned so much! : D
Blessings,
Haley