A thief taking your garage door opener feels like a huge violation of privacy. Oftentimes people experience fear that someone will break into their house with their own remote – and that is not a fun feeling. If your garage door remote gets stolen, there are steps you can take to protect your home and family.
Read on to learn the steps to take if your garage door opener gets stolen.
Contact The Police
Garage door openers often get taken from cars rather than homes. Before filing a report, triple check your car and home to make sure that the remote is not lost.
Usually, a thief will take more than just a remote from your vehicle. It is important that all losses are documented and reported to both the police and your insurance company. While filing a police report, they will typically ask where the theft occurred, when it occurred, and the condition that your vehicle was left in.
Your insurance company may or may not cover the items stolen from your car, including your clicker. Open a claim with the company to attempt to cover your losses. Having a police report on file will also help with insurance issues.
Clear Out Existing Programmed Devices
To protect your home, it is important that you disconnect all existing controllers from your garage door unit. Then you can re-connect any controllers you may need that you need. Severing the connection between the stolen controller and your door removes any power that the thief may have.
Most garage door units are different, but have similarities. Pressing the “learn” or “smart” button for a few seconds will often deprogram the current remotes. This is usually indicated by a light on the unit flashing or turning on and off. If you are unsure about what steps to take, refer to the unit’s instruction manual or your local garage door installation professional.
You can double check the deprogramming yourself if you have a second clicker. Try and use it on the door. If it works, the deprogramming was unsuccessful, and you should try again. If it does not work, then you have successfully deprogrammed anything that other people have a hold on.
Protecting Yourself In The Future
- Use a smart garage door unit. Many modern smart garage doors allow you to use your smart phone as a garage door opener.
- Take precautions: lock your car doors, and do your best to avoid parking in insecure places.
- If you have multiple cars in your household, and not all of them fit in your garage, make sure that none of the cars parked outside the door have controllers in them.
- If you use a remote control consistently, consider taking it with you when you aren’t in your car.
- Concerned about people entering your house through your garage? Remember to lock the door that accesses your house from the garage.
