Dark, spooky nights are drawing in. Stay safe this Halloween with essential home security tips.
The dark, gloomy nights approach as we get closer to Halloween. As the nights grow longer, it’s important to make sure your home stays secure. From excited trick-or-treaters to mischievous pranks, Halloween can bring fun as well as potential security risks.
Updated for Halloween 2025: This post has been updated in October 2025 with the latest tips to help you protect your home this spooky season.
Read on to make sure your home is protected this Halloween and keep intruders and unwanted spirits at bay.
Are You Ready for the Clock Change – and Is Your Home Security?
The clocks will go back by one hour at 2:00am on the 26/10/2025 (the last Sunday of October), marking the end of daylight saving time (British summer time). With the earlier sunset, Halloween trick or treaters dressed in spooky costumes will be taking to the streets sooner, and so could opportunistic burglars who want to take advantage of the darkness.
So, while you’re getting ready for Halloween, decorating your porch and pathway with carved pumpkins and hanging cobwebs, make sure your home security is just as ready for Halloween 2025.
Halloween Looks for 2025
This Halloween, expect to see timeless costumes like witches, vampires, zombies, skeletons, mummies, werewolves and creepy clowns, as well as costumes inspired by iconic characters from some of 2025’s most popular movies and TV shows. Trick or treaters will be dressed to impress for Halloween, but is your home just as prepared?
With films like M3GAN 2.0, 28 Years Later and The Conjuring: Last Rights hitting the big screen this year, costumes inspired by these will be everywhere. Look out for lifelike android M3GAN lookalikes, plenty of zombie hordes and spooky nuns making their way through the night.
Popular TV shows like Wednesday, Squid Game, Fallout, Stranger Things and The Last of Us are sure to inspire costumes this year, including Wednesday Addams, Masked Pink Guards, The Ghoul, Eleven, Vecna and Infected roaming the streets in search of treats.
Of course, Halloween wouldn’t be complete without the usual horror fan favourites lurking around too – Michael Myers, Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees and Art the Clown. These horror icons are experts at finding ways in, but with upgraded home security, you can make sure your property stays secure from any real intruders.
While Halloween is a night of fun, it’s important to be mindful of your home security, as the darker evenings offer more opportunities for unwelcome visitors.
Home Security and Burglary Statistics
ONS figures show there were 253,912 recorded burglary offences in the year ending December 2024. This marks a decrease compared to the previous year, and suggests that more home owners and businesses are prioritising home security measures to keep the ghouls away.
According to Crimestoppers, the Office of National Statistics recently said it’s widely accepted that improvements to home security have been an important factor in the reduction seen in domestic burglary. This highlights the importance of improving your home’s security – not just as a general precaution, but as a proven way to reduce the risk of burglary year round, and not just for Halloween. By making simple improvements, you can decrease the likelihood of your property being a target for burglary.
With this in mind, we have put together some actionable Halloween home security tips to keep your home secure in October 2025 and beyond.
Lock up, day and night!
Keep potential intruders away at Halloween by making sure your home is securely locked, especially when you’re out. It’s simple, but it’s the first step to improving the security of your home, and is often overlooked, so take a moment to double-check your locks.
Heading out to a Halloween party? Before you go, be sure to lock up and secure your home. You don’t want to come back to find an unexpected “guest”, like Chucky, waiting in your living room!
Like Michael Myers, burglars will take advantage of unlocked doors and open windows, and combined with it getting darker much earlier, it only makes it more convenient for them to try and enter your home undetected.
A quick check of your doors and locks can help ensure that your night stays fun and your property remains secure.
Use Indoor Smart Lights and Timers
Using timers for your indoor lights is an effective way to improve home security during the Halloween season when the darker nights creep in. When you’re out for the evening trick-or-treating or attending a Halloween party, timed lighting can create the illusion that someone is home, which can help deter potential intruders.
In The Purge (2013), where lighting played a crucial role in signalling that a home was occupied and secured, keeping your house well-lit can make a huge difference in discouraging unwanted visitors. Set your timers to turn lights on and off in different rooms at different times, mimicking the natural activity of your household. This random pattern is more convincing than leaving one light on all night, making your home appear occupied. Place them in important areas that can be seen from outside, like your living room, kitchen, or hallway, where light would normally be visible.
If you have a smart home system, like Hive, that uses smart plugs or smart light bulbs, you can control your indoor lights remotely, adding even more flexibility to your home’s security setup. Adjusting the lights on the go will make it even harder for anyone to predict whether someone is inside.
Light Up the Darkness with Scary Decorations
Carving some spooky pumpkins for Halloween? Take the opportunity to add LED lighting, like candles, inside and place it by your front door or on the porch for an added layer of illumination.
Use well-lit figures like skeletons or ghosts near pathways or dark corners of your garden. They’ll bring the Halloween atmosphere while deterring anyone trying to sneak by in the shadows.
For an even creepier touch, add motion-sensor Halloween decorations that activate eerie sound effects or lights to spring to life when someone walks past. Much like how Pennywise the Clown likes to cause a jump scare, these props can startle would-be intruders, and alert you to activity and movement around your home.
What better way to make intruders intimidated and expose anyone lurking in the shadows with petrifying decorations that light up the darkness.
Add Outdoor Lighting
While indoor lighting can create the illusion of activity inside your home, outdoor lighting is just as crucial for deterring intruders.
On Halloween night, when your porch may already be busy with visitors, a well-lit exterior does more than welcome trick or treaters, it also makes your home a less appealing target. Outdoor lighting can give burglars the impression that people are home, making it less likely that they will try breaking into your property this Halloween. Motion sensor lights can be particularly effective as they surprise intruders when approaching your property, instantly illuminating the area with beams of light, signalling your awareness of their presence and catching them in the spotlight.
Create a Tricky Landscape
Consider strategically placing prickly or dense plants and bushes near your windows. Thorny plants, like Holly, create a natural barrier that can make intruders think twice before getting too close. If they do dare, the moment they get hit with a prick, you’ll be alerted by the tell-tale signs of their presence. They might even leave behind torn fabric, like clues in a mystery.
However, don’t overlook the importance of maintaining your garden, clearing clutter and trimming your front hedges. Crimestoppers did a poll which showed that ⅔ of people surveyed faced an increased risk of burglary due to high hedges. Overgrown plants, bushes and overhanging branches from trees can provide shadowy hiding places, as well as obscure outdoor lighting and cameras. An untidy garden with long grass, weeds or clutter might make your property look unoccupied, giving it the look of a haunted house rather than a lived-in home. To a burglar, that suggests no one is home or paying much attention to the property, making it feel like a safer target with less chance of being disturbed.
Simple steps like pruning your hedges can improve sightlines, making it easier for neighbours or passers-by to notice suspicious activity. This way, your house can look welcoming, lit up with pumpkins and porch lights, without providing a hiding place for ghouls.
You can also use sound to your advantage. Adding gravel to paths, beneath windows, or near entry points creates a natural alarm system, discouraging potential intruders from approaching your home. Much like in the film “A Quiet Place”, where the smallest sound can alert deadly creatures, gravel can serve as your own defence and subtle warning system. The crunch of footsteps on gravel will give you an immediate heads-up, making it difficult for anyone to approach silently, helping to keep your home safe at Halloween, or any time of year.
Security Cameras
In the movie Paranormal Activity, eerie disturbances and unsettling events are caught on camera. Catch all the spooky activity in and around your home this Halloween by installing 24/7 security. CCTV acts as a powerful deterrent for burglars, warning any intruders that your home is under constant watch. Potential burglars will be spooked with a sophisticated security system in place – and who knows, you might even catch a ghost on your camera.
The good news is that CCTV is no longer a complicated or overly expensive option. Affordable options like the Wireless Ring outdoor camera, or the Yale Smart Outdoor camera make it simple to check in on your home from your phone, without the complicated wired setup. Just remember to charge the batteries!
Intruders, much like Ghostface from Scream, are quick to take advantage of less secure properties, exploiting unlocked doors or open windows, but the presence of simple, affordable CCTV can be enough to make them think twice before approaching.
Video doorbells are useful for knowing exactly who is at your door when they ring the bell, reducing the risk of distraction burglary without leaving the comfort of your sofa. The extra visibility makes all the difference, and they’re especially handy if masked visitors arrive at your doorstep this Halloween. They come equipped with a camera and a microphone, so you can unmask who’s really outside before opening the door, just like the gang in Scooby-Doo.
This Halloween, don’t just look out for ghosts and ghouls, protect your property from real world threats too. The combination of a video doorbell and security cameras can create a high quality security system to help deter thieves and keep your property safe, giving you peace of mind long after the trick or treaters have gone.
Consider installing a 24/7 surveillance system like our Yale Smart Home CCTV.
Install an Alarm System
Like the siren in Ghostbusters alerts the team to race into action, a home alarm system is designed to react the moment trouble appears. The piercing noise can send intruders running, and it’s an effective way to protect your property as a visual deterrent too. Visible alarm boxes act as a warning before anyone approaches, spooking burglars away by signalling that your home is monitored and not an easy target.
Modern alarm systems can be wireless, with options that link to your phone, allowing you to check in on your home from anywhere.
Combined with CCTV and good garden maintenance, an alarm system creates a layered defence that keeps your home safe from mischief all year round, with no proton pack required.
Keep your valuables locked away
This Halloween, the only people who should be taking goodies for free are the kids trick or treating – not burglars! Don’t leave expensive jewellery, electronics, or other valuables lying around. Keep any cash, sensitive documents and high-value possessions locked away so intruders don’t get enticed to try and steal it. Just like troublesome Gremlins, opportunistic thieves will grab whatever is in easy reach, so don’t give them the chance. Ideally, you want your valuables to be so secure that not even those sneaky, spectral spirits can get to your valuables. Consider using a safe or lockable drawer to keep these items well protected.
Halloween is a night where the mischievous thrive, and for many homeowners, it can be quite worrying to think about all the things that could happen. It’s important to focus on what you can control vs what you can’t. While you may not be able to control what other people decide to do on Halloween, you can control your own home security. If you’re looking to update your security, contact your local locksmith today.
Sources:
Office for National Statistics: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/crimeinenglandandwales/yearendingdecember2024
