Beware of Porch Pirates this Holiday Season

If you're anything like me, you spent at least part of Monday ordering Christmas presents online.  Wouldn't it be a shame if those gifts went missing before you could actually give them to the person you bought them for?

Up until Halloween weekend when someone went through my parked car, I considered my apartment complex a pretty safe area.  I was pretty lucky that nothing disappeared from my vehicle (after all, I was the dummy who left my car unlocked) but it did make me think about the probability for "crimes of opportunity." Would the same person that went through my car be the Grinch who steals one of the boxes on my doorstep before I got home from work?

According to Channel 2, it happens in Boise more often than we'd like to think.  Nextdoor.com surveyed it's users and 42% say they've had a package go missing from their doorstep.

After the Halloween incident, that's exactly why I'm having all of my presents delivered to the 103.5 KISS FM studio this year.  During daylight hours, I'm at work more hours than I'm at home.  My boyfriend's hours are almost the same as mine which means if a package was delivered while we were gone, it'd be sitting outside till 7:30 p.m.  That's plenty of time for someone to walk off with it.

Want to help keep your packages safe? Here's some other things you can do to help keep them from ending up in a porch pirate's hands:

• Have packages delivered to a friend or relative you know will be home at the time of your delivery
• Have it shipped to a hub like the Post Office, UPS customer centers or FedEx pick up sites
• Require a signature when the package is delivered
• Leave instructions to drop it off at the office of your apartment building