Someone is on your property right now

If you are reading this during an incident: do not go outside. Call your armed response or 10111 now, and read the rest afterwards.

The order that actually helps

1. Do not go outside to look. This is the single most important line on this page. Property is insured; you are not replaceable. Confronting someone converts a burglary into something far worse.
2. Get everyone to one place. A room with a door that locks, ideally with a second exit. Take phones. Keep children with you rather than fetching them from another wing later.
3. Call, and be specific. Whoever you call, lead with: your address, how many people are inside the house, where on the property the intruder is, and whether you can see a weapon. That last one changes the response.
4. Say what you can see. "One male, dark jacket, at the back door, ninety seconds ago, I have a photo" is worth more than any amount of urgency in your voice. If you have a camera alert, you have that detail already.
5. Stay on the line. Control rooms want live updates — direction of travel, whether the person has left, whether more than one is present.
6. Make noise from a safe place. Lights, an alarm, a shouted "the alarm is on and they're coming" from behind a locked door. Most intruders are looking for an uneventful job and will leave.
7. Do not clean up afterwards. Once it is over and you are safe, leave things where they are for SAPS. Photograph everything before touching anything.

What to do in the calm, so the two minutes go better

Nearly everything that determines how this goes is decided beforehand:

• Save the numbers properly. Armed response and 10111 in your phone's favourites, and written on the fridge for anyone else in the house. Fumbling for a number costs more than you'd think.
• Agree the safe room now. Everyone in the house should be able to answer "where do we go?" without discussion.
• Test that you would actually wake up. A silenced phone at 02:00 is the commonest failure. If your alerting can escalate to a phone call, make sure that call is on a number that rings through Do Not Disturb.
• Give someone else the ability to raise the alarm. A partner, an adult child, a neighbour. If you are asleep, travelling or your phone is flat, somebody else should be reachable.
• Know what your cameras can tell you. Being able to check a live view or a photo from behind a locked door — instead of opening it — is the difference between informed and guessing.

Afterwards

• Get a SAPS case number — insurers require it.
• Export the relevant camera footage promptly. Most recorders overwrite within two to four weeks, and clips are often gone before the claim is processed.
• Tell your immediate neighbours and your street group. Patterns matter, and a specific description with a time is more useful than "be alert".
• Walk the property in daylight and ask what would have made it slower or louder: the gate that doesn't latch, the beam pointed at a bush, the light that's been out for a month.