[Joeaksa]

Alfred,

I would get two safes. One for the large items (in your case long and sharp!) and one smaller one. Make the smaller safe hard to find and the larger one bolted to the wall or floor if possible. It will take too long to open the large one and impossible to carry away.

The smaller one with the cash and jewelery and such if not found is your best bet for smaller items. Put it in an attic, behind or under a staircase or where-ever that is hard to find.

While the alarm is going off (make sure that it has a backup battery and might look into a cell phone link to back up the land line) the crooks do not have time to mess with searching the house very long.

Also might look into a remote alarm siren that triggers when the main unit goes off. The criminals can disarm the downstairs unit after getting in the door but until the second siren in the attic has received a "all clear" signal from the control unit, it keeps going on until the battery goes out or the police arrive.

Lastly Eric's comment about the dog is a very good one. Moise is the criminal enemy and if the neighbours hear a dog going wild, even in the backyard they will usually investigate.