Crooks often find it easy to break into homes, but there are simple, inexpensive solutions to keep you and your home safe.

For just a few dollars and a few minutes, you can install a safety bar on your sliding glass door. Even a sawed-off broom handle lying in the door track could help keep intruders away.

Or you can drill a small hole across the track of the door so you could insert a nail that would help keep crooks out.

Those are just some options considered by an Aurora, Colo., woman who wanted to make her home unattractive -- at least to burglars. She had been a victim before.

"The feeling of having your home vandalized, and things taken from your home is just horrible, just horrible," said Carrie, who chose not to have her last name disclosed.

There are many ways to make it harder on criminals to break into your home, authorities said.

Aurora Police Officer Scott Burgess said Carrie's windows are a good example of what police call the "3-7 rule."

"You don't have shrubs or anything else growing up and hiding your ability to see in and out," Burgess said.

Carrie's shrubs are shorter than 3 feet, so they don't block her windows, and her trees don't have branches that are lower than 7 feet, which would make it easier for crooks to climb the side of her house.

But on the side of her home, the phone lines are exposed.

"This is probably one of the weak spots that you have," Burgess said.

"It just really did not occur to me that someone is just going to walk up and snip the wire and then you don't have contact with the outside world," Carrie said.

And while the green grass beneath the window looks nice, crushed rock would work better to ward away a burglar, Burgess suggested.

"That way if you are in here and the blinds are up or you're in a bedroom above, you can hear someone walking through here before they actually get to your window," Burgess said.

And inside, that same window could be beefed up in a matter of minutes for just pennies.

"A nail in there, a small nail or a small pin, works out pretty well," Burgess said. Want to test your home for free? The best inspector is that person in the mirror.

"If someone would just go around their property and say, 'What if I was a burglar?' or 'What if I was a thief, how would I do it?' (They would) find the weak spots in their house and their property and their space and address those issues. A lot of times it's simply a matter of throwing a deadbolt or installing a deadbolt," Burgess said.

More Information:

• Crime Prevention: Stopping Burglars
• 10 Ways To Keep Your Home Burglary Free by the National Safety Council
• Safety Home Tips
• 30 Police Tips
• Home Safety Tips