The Entry Points Burglars Target Most (and How to Harden Them)

Where intruders actually look first

Most break-ins aren't clever. They're opportunistic. An intruder walks or drives a street, looks for the path of least resistance, and tries the spots that tend to give way fastest. Around San Jose and the wider Santa Clara County, that usually means a door that can be forced quickly and quietly rather than a window in full view of the street or a neighbor's camera.

As a mobile locksmith working across the South Bay, we see the same weak points again and again. The good news is that the same short list of fixes covers most of them. Below we walk the perimeter of a typical home, point out where the pressure tends to land, and explain the practical hardening that holds up. We won't cover how anyone defeats a lock here. The point is the opposite: how to make your entry points boring and slow so that someone looking for an easy hit moves on.

• The front door, because a strong-looking door can still be mounted in a weak frame
• The back and side doors, which are out of sight and often the least upgraded
• The door from the garage into the house, frequently the softest interior door in the home
• Sliding patio doors, which are convenient for the family and convenient for the wrong person too

Front, back, and side doors: the frame matters more than the door

A solid front door gives a sense of security, but the door slab is rarely the weak link. The real vulnerability is usually the frame and the hardware holding everything together. A deadbolt is only as strong as what the bolt lands in, and on a lot of homes that means a thin strike plate held by two short screws biting into soft jamb trim rather than the wall framing behind it.

Back doors and side doors deserve extra attention precisely because they're out of view. A door tucked along a fence line or behind a gate gives an intruder time and cover that a front door never offers. If you've upgraded your front entry but left the back the way the builder installed it, that back door is now your weakest point.

• Swap the short strike-plate screws for 3-inch screws that reach the stud behind the jamb, so force is spread into the framing
• Use a real grade-rated deadbolt with a full one-inch throw, not a thin entry-knob lock doing double duty
• Add a reinforced strike plate or a strike-reinforcement kit on exterior doors that take the most use
• Make sure the gap between door and frame is snug and the bolt fully extends every time you lock it
• On side and back doors, treat the hardware as seriously as the front; consider a quality secondary deadbolt where the layout allows

The garage and the door from the garage into the house

The garage is two entry points in one. There's the overhead garage door itself and, more importantly, the passage door that connects the garage to the living space. People often leave the overhead door's emergency release exposed and treat the interior connecting door as just another inside door, with a hollow slab and a flimsy privacy knob. Once someone is inside the garage, that interior door is frequently the easiest way into the home.

Treat the garage-to-house door like the exterior door it really is. It separates a semi-public space from your living area, so it deserves the same hardening as your front entry. While you're at it, look at the overhead door's habits: an opener left in a car parked outside, or a remote clipped to a visible visor, undoes a lot of good locks.

• Upgrade the garage-to-house door to a solid-core door with a proper deadbolt and long strike-plate screws
• Keep the overhead garage door fully closed when you're away, not cracked for the pet or for ventilation
• Don't leave the opener remote in a vehicle parked in the driveway or on the street
• Consider securing or shielding the overhead door's manual release so it can't be reached from outside
• Keep the interior connecting door locked even when you're home, the same way you'd lock a front door

Sliding patio doors: convenient for everyone, including the wrong person

Sliding glass doors are everywhere in South Bay homes, and they're a favorite target because many rely only on a light latch that holds the panel closed rather than truly locking it down. A patio door that simply rests in its track, or that can be shifted or lifted in its frame, is an invitation, especially when it faces a private backyard.

The fixes here are inexpensive and genuinely effective. The goal is to stop the panel from sliding and from lifting out of its track, so the door can't be moved even if the factory latch is weak. None of this requires a remodel; most of it is a same-afternoon upgrade.

• Drop a sturdy bar or a fitted dowel into the lower track so the panel physically can't slide open
• Install a secondary patio-door pin or auxiliary foot lock that pins the sliding panel to the frame
• Add anti-lift devices or adjust the rollers so the panel can't be raised out of its track
• Apply security film to the glass to make it far harder to breach quietly
• Keep landscaping near patio doors trimmed so the door stays visible rather than screened off

A simple South Bay hardening checklist

You don't have to do everything at once. Most homeowners get the biggest improvement from a handful of low-cost changes done well: longer strike-plate screws, a real deadbolt on every exterior and garage-to-house door, and proper secondary protection on sliding doors. Walk your own perimeter the way an outsider would and fix the spot that would give first.

If you'd rather have a professional handle it, Locksmith San Jose is a mobile locksmith serving San Jose and Santa Clara County, and we come to you. We can assess your doors, rekey or replace hardware, reinforce strike plates, and fit sliding-door protection in one visit. Pricing for residential hardening work falls within typical industry ranges and depends on how many doors and what hardware you choose; we confirm the final price with you before any work begins.

Call (408) 614-7111 to talk through your home's entry points, or request a free quote on our site and we'll follow up.

• Replace short screws with 3-inch screws on every exterior and garage-connecting door
• Confirm each deadbolt fully throws and lands in a reinforced strike
• Treat back, side, and garage-to-house doors as seriously as the front
• Add a track bar or pin and an anti-lift device to every sliding door
• Keep overhead garage doors closed and remotes out of parked vehicles