Things Your Burglar Won’t Tell You, But Listen Here

By Bill Primavera

 The Home Guru

The distant memory of that morning still makes my blood run cold. When we awoke, my wife told me that she had dreamed someone had been in our bedroom while we were asleep. Until we were wide awake, we had no idea that this had actually happened. 

When we went downstairs, we found that our back door had been taken totally off its hinges and that an intruder had spent considerable time with us. He had scoured ever one of our rooms, looking only for cash. We knew this because every book in our library had been leafed through. He even stayed long enough to help himself to a meal of snack foods in our kitchen.

The combined anger and fear I experienced when I realized that a stranger had been in my child’s room, close enough to her bed to have stolen her piggy bank, makes me shudder when I think about what might have happened had I awaken. 

At the time, living in a single family house in New York City with no alarm system, we were totally vulnerable to burglary or worse.  Never again, I thought.  Since then, and following our move to the country, I have taken the traditional precautions, as well as some unconventional ones, to guard against robbery and home intrusion.

Just recently I received a forwarded email from a buyer client, a police officer in the Bronx, with the subject line, “Things Your Burglar Won’t Tell You.”  While I already knew many of its points, I found some of its content new and useful. Credit for the advisory is given to several investigators and criminology professors who interviewed a large number of burglars in prison systems.  

You may have received the same or a similar email but, if so, the points bear repeating as a reminder. I have extrapolated some advice from the burglars’ comments  in the list below.

1. I may look familiar to you because I was at your home recently cleaning your carpets, painting your shutters, or power-washing your siding and deck.

2. Thanks for letting me use the bathroom when I was working in your yard. While I was in there, I unlatched the back window to make my return a little easier.

3. Love your landscaping. Lots of flowers tell me you have taste, which means there are nice things inside, and I can hide behind your shrubs since you don’t keep them pruned.

4. Yes, I really do look for newspapers piled up on the driveway.

5. If it snows while you're out of town, I’ll know it because there are no foot tracks. But, you might get a neighbor to provide them for you.

6. A good security company also alarms windows on your second floor where I might be agile enough to enter for direct access to your master bedroom and jewelry.

7. If it’s raining and you’re fumbling with your umbrella and forget to lock the door, remember, I don't take a day off because of bad weather.

8. I always knock first. If you answer, I'll ask for directions somewhere or offer to clean your gutters, but don’t take me up on it.

9. I always check dresser drawers, the bedside table, under the mattress, the refrigerator and the medicine cabinet, but I almost never go into kids’ rooms (this was not true with my burglar who was quite thorough).

10. I won't have enough time to break into that safe where you keep your valuables. But if it's not bolted down, I'll take it with me.

11. A loud TV or radio can be a better deterrent than the best alarm system.

12. Too things I hate most: loud dogs and nosey neighbors.

13. I'll break a window to get in, even if it makes a little noise. If your neighbor hears one loud sound, he'll stop what he's doing and wait to hear it again. If he doesn't hear it again, he'll just go back to what he was doing. It's human nature.

14. I'm not complaining, but why would you pay all that money for an alarm system and leave your house without setting it?

15. I love looking in your windows to know whether you’re home, and for flat screen TVs or gaming systems. I'll drive or walk through your neighborhood at night, before you close the blinds, just to pick my targets.

16. Avoid announcing your vacation on your Facebook page. It's easier than you think to look up your address.

17. To you, leaving that window open just a crack during the day is a way to let in a little fresh air. To me, it's an invitation.

18. If you don't answer when I knock, I try the door. Occasionally, I hit the jackpot and walk right in.

19. If someone in your family dies, get a house sitter when you go to the funeral. I always check the obituaries to know when a family will be out of the house.

Here are two other suggestions I’ve heard recently; one is legal and the other may not be.

Keep your car keys next to your bed. If you sense that someone is trying to enter the house, press the panic button for your car. With the alarm going off, the intruder won’t want to hang around.

Another email making the rounds recommends the use of wasp spray rather than pepper spray for self defense. It reports that wasp spray can shoot up to 20 or 30 feet and is more accurate in hitting its target. I researched this and found that federal law prohibits the use of a pesticide that is inconsistent with its intended use. However, some might argue that this method of self defense might be compared to a homeowner’s hitting an intruder over the head with a shovel, which is certainly not the intended use for a garden tool either.

It may be unpleasant to think about the possibilities of burglaries, or worse, the terror of a home invasion, but we know that they do happen and, lately, they seem to happen in our communities more often. Being informed and taking every precaution possible, rather than trying not to think about it, is the smartest thing to do. 

Bill Primavera is a licensed Realtor® (PrimaveraHomes.com), affiliated with Coldwell Banker, and a marketing practitioner (PrimaveraPR.com). For questions about selling or buying a home, he can be reached directly at 914-522-2076.

The Raised Ranch: Love It, Leave It or Change It

 by Bill Primavera

The Home Guru

Since the inception of its design in the early 60s, never has the style of a house spawned more opposing opinions than that of the raised ranch.  Some prospective home buyers are drawn to it, perhaps they grew up in one, while others say, “show me anything but!”

“I don’t know who exactly invented the design of the raised ranch, but whoever it was should be shot!” my architect friend Michael Piccirillo recently told me. Actually some architectural historians say that the design was created by none other than Frank Lloyd Wright.

The history of the raised ranch and its place in the American housing scene, rising from a clever idea to ubiquitous popularity, then to disfavor as a style, is a very interesting, strictly American phenomenon. Actually, while you see many ranch style homes here in the New York area, they originated on the West Coast in the 1920s. But once their influence reached the East Coast, the foundation had risen half a story and the one-level ranch was “raised” to create two levels.

The main complaints Piccirillo has about the elevated ranch are the same that we hear most frequently from the style’s other detractors, basically that the entrance platform between the main and lower levels of the house is normally foreshortened to the extent that it’s difficult to close the door behind you without stepping up a step or down a step.

Also, there is no provision for an entry hall closet and, as Piccirillo pointed out, the lower level is cut off from the main flow of the house. “When modernizing a raised ranch, it’s not easy to modify the space. It can become a more sizable project that’s more complicated than re-doing a ranch, cape or colonial,” he said.

Yet, it’s this very cut-off feeling that some people find desirable for converting a raised ranch into a mother/daughter layout or for an accessory apartment.

 Basically the raised ranch is a one-story ranch propped atop a high foundation, creating a lower living space without really raising the construction cost appreciably. Normally that lower space is divided into one or two rooms, along with a half or full bath and a laundry room. The rest of the level is for the utility room and a two-car garage.

Another factor in the raised ranch debate is that its design has fallen into disfavor more quickly than any other style of house.  Certainly the colonial design has been around literally since the founding of our country, and people still prefer it among all the styles. 

Supporters of the raised ranch, particularly contractors who build them, have said that you get more bang for the buck by raising the house on a high basement and creating a whole new level at a fraction of the cost that the main level requires.  Detractors would say that, while the inside may offer more space at less money, the exteriors are devoid of any distinguishing kind of features, so that large tracts of the design have tended to look alike.

Homeowners today are more sophisticated at all price levels and they want to distinguish themselves from their neighbors. On the longest block in my town with the most raised ranches, the transformation from alikeness started to take place in the late 1980s, first with the selection of new siding and windows, then with additions which many times included revamping the two car garage into living space and extending a wing with a new garage and a “bonus” room overhead. 

A while back, I met a couple. Annette and Lars Lindbergh, who first made me aware of clever ways to disguise the top-heavy look of the raised ranch with a front bump-out. Annette, an architect, designed what I call an “entrance tower” for the center of a raised ranch that remedies at least two of the design problems associated with the house’s design.  The tower is basically a one-and-a-half to two-story extension in the middle of the house which solves the problem of the small entry platform.

The entrance now becomes expansive depending on the dimensions of the tower and provides more room for a coat closet too.  Also the addition of the tower tends to make the raised ranch look more like a colonial. The tower can soar two stories to impress visitors or to create a second floor for a large elevated walk-in closet or another bathroom.

Andrea Pike told me that the main reason she and her husband Rich rebuilt the front of their raised ranch was that she simply needed closet space where there was none.  But as a bonus, her home looks more like a contemporary colonial now, complete with ionic columns supporting the front portico.  “My neighbor down the street did a similar renovation project but had it look even more like a colonial. She advised how we might do the same, but we were already into construction, and are very happy with our results,” she said.

For anyone who’s living in a raised ranch who wants to update or upgrade the design to a contemporary colonial look, as the Pikes did, I’ve researched and worked with  a couple of architects and contractors who can help at a very reasonable cost. For contact information, just call my number below.

 Bill Primavera is a licensed Realtor® (PrimaveraHomes.com), affiliated with Coldwell Banker, and a marketing practitioner (PrimaveraPR.com). He can be emailed at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or reached directly at 914-522-2076.

Follow him on Twitter for housing market updates at Twitter.com/HomeGuruNY.

Litter Affects Neighborhoods, but Getting Better?

 By Bill Primavera

The Home Guru

Litter.  Littering. Litterbug.  They would be almost cute sounding words were it not for their meaning and the deleterious affect they can have on our communities, neighborhoods and individual properties.

The issue of litter and its relation to real estate became abundantly clear to me a while back when I was driving to a house showing on a rather busy street, and the young couple I was accompanying told me to cancel the appointment even before seeing the property.  I thought the reason may have been that they preferred a quieter street. But that was not the issue. The female said, “I can’t live on a street where people just let litter lie there like that. Does the whole town have so little respect for the environment?” (And as it happens, they did choose another town that they felt was less littered.)

I don’t know how extensive the research is, but Keep America Beautiful tells us that houses for sale in littered neighborhoods usually don’t get the best prices, and littered towns have less chance of attracting new business, residents and tourists.

Because my property sits on a peninsula surrounded on three sides by roads, two of which are relatively busy, I believe that I have become somewhat of an expert on litter in the more than 30 years I’ve owned it.

What people discard from their cars or as pedestrians shows something how they live. And while the major offending throw-away in the 70s was cigarette butts, I would say that today it is mostly go-cups from slush machines, plastic containers for bottled waters and beer cans.

And, through the years, I’ve experience what I call serial episodes of littering.  For instance, for a period of more than 10 years, every single day, an empty pack of Parliament cigarettes in the hard box would be discarded on the corner of my property in exactly the same spot, accompanied by one cigarette butt.  Strange, huh? Surely, I thought, my property was targeted by some weirdo.

And while I like to think that I don’t possess a hateful bone in my body, I did start to hate the unknown perpetrator of this little crime (yes, it’s illegal).  I would fantasize about catching him (and, yes statistics reveal that most litterers are men) in the act, grabbing him by the scruff of the neck and giving him a swift kick in his other butt.

And when his long-term daily deposit suddenly cased, all I could surmise was that he had moved to another community to fowl the air and the environment there. Gee, do I sound angry? 

Besides smokers, I think there must be a lot of overweight litterbugs out there because most of the packaging materials I pick up are either fromMcDonald’s or Burger King, always with a French fry container and a milk shake cup.  

The frustrating thing is that I’ve never once seen anyone actually discard litter on my property. I suspect they check first to make sure that nobody is looking or rid themselves of the refuse of their gustatory sprees in the dead of night when homeowners are fast asleep in their beds.

Keep America Beautiful also tells us that 75 percent of Americans admit to littering within the past five years (I’m in the 25 percent of those who never litter, and I’m sure you are too).  Most common litter offenders are men between the ages of 18 and 34 who eat in fast food restaurants at least twice a week, go out for entertainment at least once a week and drive more than 50 miles a day.  So, while we may never catch them, we know a little more about them.

To help individuals out, most towns have a clean-up day at least once a year. In my hometown of Yorktown, it usually takes place around Earth Day in April. This year, 668 people in 115 teams picked up 10 tons of roadside litter. Also in my town, as with most other towns, we have road sponsorships by local companies, which have varying degrees of success.  Bette Midler is a champion of sponsoring roads to remove litter in New York City.

While most towns have codes that classify littering as illegal and impose fines for businesses or individuals caught littering, do you know anyone who has ever been fined for littering? I don’t. In all these years I’ve lived in Westchester, only twice have I actually seen someone in the act of littering, but that was while I was driving in my car and saw a driver in front of me do it.

The first time, I saw a young man at a stoplight throw out a large soda cup, still filled with ice. I pulled alongside the offender (who incidentally had a cigarette hanging out of his mouth), rolled down my window and, perhaps venting years of frustration in not catching any of the guys who littered my own property, I shouted, “Pig!” His equally gruff response to me was to do something that I am pretty sure is physically impossible, at least for me.

But just recently, I had a better experience as a litter vigilante.  Again, I saw a young man in front of me toss out a wrapper of some kind from his car window, and again I was able to pull alongside the car. With the kind of moderation that comes with the years, this time I said, “You know, it would be really nice if you didn’t throw your trash on the road.” This young man, obviously embarrassed, said sheepishly, “I’m sorry, sir,” and got out of his car to retrieve it

Thankfully, the volume of litter around my own property and from what I’ve observed on neighboring properties and along the roads would seem to have lessened significantly in the past three or four years, don’t you agree?  Is it because the environmental message is getting across?  Or is it that consumers, beleaguered by a continuing recession, are spending less money on disposable goods? 

Whatever the reason, I’m grateful.

 Bill Primavera is a licensed Realtor® (PrimaveraHomes.com), affiliated with Coldwell Banker, and a marketing practitioner (PrimaveraPR.com). He can be emailed at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or reached directly at 914-522-2076. Follow him on Twitter for housing market updates at Twitter.com/HomeGuruNY.

More Bedrooms Needed for Couples Sleeping Apart?

By Bill Primavera

The Home Guru

 Last week there was a lot of fuss on broadcast and online about the revelation by the National Sleep Institute that as many as one in four married couples sleep in separate bedrooms or beds. It came as a surprise to many who posted comments on line, some not believing the findings and others saying, so what’s new?  

At the same time, the National Association of Home Builders, perhaps riding on the coattails of the report, projected that 60 percent of custom homes will feature dual master bedrooms by the year 2015, according to a joint report by The New York Times and the Today Show.

“That’s pure poppycock!” exclaimed Barry Goewey, noted architect in Westchester. “I just don’t believe it, and I would never design a home based on couples who sleep in separate master bedrooms,” he continued. “The average homeowner cannot afford the additional square footage that would require.”

Another architect who works in the region, Michael Piccirillo, also found the report incredulous. “In all my years of designing homes, not one family ever asked me for two separate master bedrooms. If anything, people today want to downsize space, not increase it,” he said. “If you add 200 square feet for an extra master bedroom, it’s going to add $40,000 to $50,000 to the cost of the house.  And think about septic!  Many of us in this area are on septic systems, and the requirements for fields are based on the number of bedrooms in a house. It would screw up the whole works.”

Still the statistics are there to observe, ponder and question how these findings will affect the design of new homes in the next decade. 

 In our own lifetimes, we’ve already experienced the design modifications that accompanied our lifestyle changes. These include the diminution of the formal living room, the creation of the family room and the den, the development of the large granite-laden, brushed steel gourmet kitchen, the adoption of the home office and home gym, and the evolution from the Cape to the Colonial as the preferred home style, all of which dictated the need for additional square footage. But, now, separate master bedrooms for husband and wife?

Another consideration is the interior design of master bedrooms for male and female. Joanne Palumbo of Homestyling101 says, “Maintaining separate bedrooms is fine for living, if it suits you,  but once you put the home on the market, the homeowners really should distinguish one of the bedrooms as a gender neutral master bedroom and the other as a secondary bedroom. Showing a home with two gender specific master bedrooms conveys a feeling of discord in the home and will inevitably confuse the buyer.”

Most couples are loathe to talk about their personal lives to friends and families, particularly sleeping arrangements, even if it has nothing to do with intimacy, but they are more likely to share more honestly in an anonymous survey, as with this current report.

Personally, I wondered whether this is a reflection of the condition of the economy and the housing market. Greater anxiety might produce more volatile sleep patterns, or, it might indeed be an issue with intimacy caused by financial problems, the main reason that married couples quarrel. You know the old saying that when poverty comes in the door, love flies out the window.

In the Times, the reasons for separate sleeping arrangements seemed to be other than intimacy issues, but more weighted toward physical problems that were disturbing to bed partners, such as nervous leg syndrome and snoring, and to the practical accommodation of different schedules, like morning and night shifts between spouses. 

And, realtors have been noticing more cases where couples who list their homes for sale are planning to divorce but are still living under the same roof, probably in separate bedrooms, because neither party can afford to move until the house sells.

According to the Institute’s findings, the trend toward sleeping separately has doubled in the past few decades, and perhaps we were conditioned to this practice by the moral codes of the times before sexual liberation. 

When I was a kid, the Hayes Code dominated the movies in Hollywood and it demanded that on-screen couples not sleep in the same bed.  I always knew that this did not reflect real life because, unlike movie couples, my parents always wrapped themselves around each other in the same bed.  I know this because my mother would complain that my father’s muscular legs and arms weighted her down like a vice, but obviously she liked it because they slept together intertwined like a pretzel every night.

Before the adoption of the Hayes Code was the Great Depression when couples were lucky to afford a bed, much less two bedrooms. 

And if you want to go way back to Colonial times, there was little chance of sleeping separately for most folks, coupled or not. Beds were a luxury item at the time and many siblings and adults were forced to share beds, especially when traveling. Male travelers often had to share a bed with three or four other men in overcrowded inns. Sometimes even mixed sexes shared the same bed in an ingenious way, separated by a “bundling board” between them, but that was more a courting custom, to determine whether couples could be compatible all day and night, without being intimate before marriage.

In more recent times that more of us would remember, “I Love Lucy” featured Lucy and Ricky in separate beds (and how we wonder did she have that famous pregnancy under such conditions?), and we never questioned the propriety of these sleeping arrangements. In fact, I think we were all  surprised when on-screen couples finally did slip into the same bed, with the proviso that one of them have one foot on the floor (imagine?), a position that would certainly be a deterrent to achieving intimacy, save for the athletically gifted.

Of course, if we were to judge by what goes down on screen today, our younger generation would think that the bed is primarily for coupling and only incidentally for a good night’s sleep. 

While statistics may sometimes be skewed, they don’t totally lie, and if more of us need to sleep separately for whatever reason and can’t afford the space required, what is one to do?   Mike Piccirillo offers a simple solution:  “Get a great couch.”

Bill Primavera is a licensed Realtor® (PrimaveraHomes.com), affiliated with Coldwell Banker, and a marketing practitioner (PrimaveraPR.com). He can be emailed at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or reached directly at 914-522-2076.

Follow him on Twitter for housing market updates at Twitter.com/HomeGuruNY.