By the end of this month it will be dark before teatime. And an unlit house at 6pm tells anyone who cares to look that nobody is home.

October is National Home Security Month, the annual campaign behind homesecuritymonth.com, and it exists for exactly this season. So here is the ten-minute walk-round worth doing this week, whether you own your home or rent it.

Darkness does the advertising. In June, an empty house at 6pm looks like any other house. In November, it is the only dark window on the street.

Most of the fixes below cost little or nothing. Burglars are opportunists before they are anything else, and opportunity is the thing you can remove.

Signals, mostly. A house in darkness at an hour when homes are normally lit. Post or parcels building up. A side gate that swings open. A ladder helpfully stored against the fence. Valuables framed in a lit window like a shop display.

Read that list again and notice something cheering: every single one is within your control, this week, for pennies. That is the thinking behind the walk-round below.

The whole walk-round applies to you too, with one addition: anything broken, a failing lock, a door that doesn't sit right, a dead outside light, gets reported to your landlord or agent in writing, straight away. Fixing it is their job. Telling them is yours.

And remember your landlord's insurance covers the building, not your belongings. Contents insurance is yours to sort, and it costs less than most people assume.

Some of it, and you don't need a control room. A video doorbell answers the door when you can't, and a couple of smart plugs will run your lamps on a dusk schedule without you thinking about it. Both cost less than a takeaway a month.

Two caveats. Renters should ask before fitting anything that drills into the door or wall, and battery models exist for exactly this reason. And no gadget replaces the basics: a smart doorbell watching over an unbolted side gate is just good footage of a preventable problem.

The cheapest security system ever invented is neighbours who know each other. A street WhatsApp group, or an active Neighbourhood Watch, means someone clocks the unfamiliar van, brings your bin in, and notices the parcel on your step before anyone else does.

If your street has one, join it. If it doesn't, starting one takes an evening and a few notes through doors, and it will outperform any gadget in this article.

Timers on, curtains half-drawn rather than shut tight, post managed, and a trusted neighbour keeping an eye. Save the holiday photos until you are back, an empty-house announcement to strangers is the one thing social media does brilliantly.

An unlit house at 6pm signals an empty one, which is why police forces run darker-nights campaigns every autumn and why National Home Security Month sits in October. Light on a timer is the simplest counter.

Habits. Locking the door properly, key out of the lock, side gate bolted, valuables out of window view. After that, a plug-in timer for a lamp costs a few pounds.

The landlord provides secure doors, windows and working locks and repairs them when told. The renter uses them, reports faults promptly in writing, and insures their own contents.

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