Security
Stopping package theft this season, at a house or an apartment building.
October to December is when the most boxes land on the most porches. Package theft fell nationally in 2025 for the first time in years, but about a third of Americans still lost a package. Here is what works, from free habits to a person watching the driveway.
About 31% of Americans had a package stolen in the year to late 2025, and the typical stolen package was worth $143, according to SafeWise. What works: delivery where nobody can see it, an alert the moment a package lands, a camera that records faces at the door, and for apartment buildings, a package room that logs who opens it.
By Ivan Rivas, Owner and Sales Engineer · 2026-10-15 · Updated 2026-10-15
The numbers, honestly
Package theft is the most commonly experienced crime in SafeWise's yearly survey, and it is also falling. Their 2025 report, published in November, found 31% of Americans had a package stolen in the past year, down from 37%. Three in four victims lost more than one, and the typical stolen package was worth $1431.
SafeWise put the national total at about 250,000 thefts a day and roughly $15 billion a year. A separate CNET and YouGov survey in October 2025 found about 30% of adults had a package stolen, almost stolen, or knew someone who had2.
These are national figures. No South Sound police department publishes a package theft count, so nobody can honestly tell you it is rising here.
Free things first
Most of the protection costs nothing.
- Get it out of sight. Delivery instructions for a side door, a back porch or behind a gate. A box visible from the street is the easy one.
- Pick up the expensive ones. Carrier pickup points, lockers and in-store pickup for anything you would hate to lose.
- Require a signature on valuable orders.
- Know when it lands. Carrier text alerts get you or a neighbor to the door before anyone else.
A camera at the door
A video doorbell records who came to the door and when, and it alerts your phone the moment a person or a delivery arrives. That alert is the useful part: it turns a box sitting out all afternoon into one that someone picks up in minutes.
We install the Ajax Video DoorBell on Ajax home systems, so the doorbell, the alarm and the cameras live in one app. Cameras on the driveway and the porch record faces and plates, which is what a police report and a retailer's claim both need. The home security page covers the rest of the system.
Someone watching the driveway
A doorbell records. A guard can act. With live guards on a driveway or porch camera, a person sees someone walk up to the door, speaks to them through the camera's speaker, and calls police with a description if they stay.
Rivas Technology Group installs this with Deep Sentinel, on a one-year term. It is more than most homes need for packages alone. It makes sense where the driveway or a side yard is the real worry. Pricing and details are on the remote video monitoring page.
Apartment buildings: a package room
In a building, packages pile up in a lobby anyone can walk into. The fix is a package room behind a door that logs who opens it. Couriers get QR passes that expire, tenants open it with their own fob or phone, and a camera covers the shelves.
When a box goes missing, the log names whose credential opened the door and the camera shows what they carried out. That is a short conversation instead of a building-wide argument. The multifamily security page has the full package.
If it happens anyway
Save the clip and the delivery confirmation, report it to police for a case number, then file with the retailer or the carrier. Many ask for the report number before they replace an item. A clear clip of a face is what makes the report worth filing.
