Dark Evenings and Tool Theft: The Winter Checklist for Tradesmen

The clocks go back on 25 October, and for anyone who keeps tools in a van the working day changes shape overnight. You unload in the dark, park in the dark and load again in the dark. Nothing about the van has changed, but almost everything about how exposed it is has.

This is not a sales piece. Most of what follows costs nothing and takes an evening.

What actually changes in winter

• Your van sits in darkness for far more of the night, often from four in the afternoon until seven the next morning.
• Neighbours are indoors with the curtains shut, so the casual overlooking that deters opportunists in summer is gone.
• You are more likely to leave tools in overnight, because unloading in cold rain is miserable and you are back at the same job tomorrow.
• Discovery is slower. A van emptied at eight in the evening is often not found out until seven the next morning.

The checklist

1. Park with the doors against something. A wall, a fence, another vehicle. A rear door that cannot open wide is a door most thieves will not bother with.
2. Empty the van overnight where you realistically can. Not everything, but the expensive and portable: the battery tools, the laser, the SDS.
3. Check your security lights still work and are pointed at the van rather than at the house. Replace the bulb now, not in January.
4. Photograph your kit and record the serial numbers. Ten minutes with a phone, and it is the difference between a claim that gets paid and one that does not.
5. Register the serials somewhere searchable so police can match recovered kit back to you.
6. Check your insurance actually covers tools left in a vehicle overnight. A great many policies do not, or cap it far lower than you would guess.
7. Make sure any tracker in the van is charged, reporting and installed somewhere a thief will not find in thirty seconds.

Where tracking fits

Trackers do not prevent theft, and anyone telling you otherwise is selling. What a tracker changes is what happens next. Most stolen tools move within hours and are sold within days, and the window where recovery is realistic is short. Knowing within minutes rather than the following morning is most of the battle.

The practical points are the dull ones. Keep it charged. Put it somewhere non obvious, not in the obvious case. Know in advance how you would share a location with police, because working that out at six in the morning while angry is not the time.

Do it before the end of the month

None of this is complicated and none of it takes long. It is simply much easier to do on a dry evening in October than in the dark and wet of January, after something has already gone.