ST. LOUIS – The holidays are right around the corner, and there’s a good chance you might be expecting some packages with gifts at your front door. New research reveals you might want to be extra careful with your deliveries in St. Louis.
Home security company Vivint recently released a report on porch pirates, naming “high-risk areas” and offering prevention strategies.
Vivint analyzed the prevalence of porch pirates through a rating system coined the porch pirate index (PPI). A research team looked at search volume data for terms like “package stolen,” “package lost,” and “package theft” within America’s most highly populated 100 cities.
The PPI data confirmed that St. Louis had the highest search volume for those three terms per 100,000 residents among the nation’s 100 largest cities.
Within its key takeaways, Vivint says, “St. Louis has the most porch piracy among the 100 most populated U.S. cities.” That might not be the most accurate conclusion, but the search volume means people are certainly thinking about the status of their deliveries.
Starting with St. Louis, Vivint lists these five cities as the ones with the most porch pirate-related searches per 100,000 residents:
- St. Louis, Missouri (118 searches per 100K residents) – PPI Score: 100
- Jersey City, New Jersey (115 searches per 100K residents) – PPI Score: 97.7
- Madison, Wisconsin (111 searches per 100K residents) – PPI Score: 94.1
- Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (104 searches per 100K residents) – PPI Score: 88.7
- Fremont, California (100 searches per 100K residents) – PPI Score: 84.9
Vivint recommends some of the following practices to mitigate the possibility of porch pirates…
- Have your packages delivered to your office rather than your home.
- Opt for an Amazon locker delivery.
- Require a signature for high-value packages.
- Install a smart lock so delivery drivers can place items inside your home, and you can relock your door remotely when they leave.
- Opt for a smart garage door opener that allows you to open and close your garage door remotely so that deliveries can be left inside.
- Choose in-store pick-up so you can pick up your package directly from the store on your way home.
- Install a security camera or smart doorbell that might make porch pirates think twice.
