Parcel theft tops vacation worries for solo households, survey finds

What worries single-person households most when they head off on summer vacation?

According to an online survey of 7,556 customers using S1's security service, conducted July 7 to 10, 60.3 percent said they planned to leave their homes empty for a summer vacation or extended outing.

Among single-person households, 59.1 percent cited parcel theft at the front door as their top concern when away from home. For women living alone, 51.4 percent said they worried that deliveries would reveal they lived by themselves — compared with just 4.2 percent of single men. Among solo residents living with pets, 72.5 percent said they were anxious about the animals left behind.

Multi-person households had different priorities: 55.0 percent worried most about strangers approaching the home, 43.7 percent about break-ins targeting an empty house, and 43.1 percent about being unable to check on the home while away.

Across both household types, 88.2 percent said they were aware that social media posts from a vacation destination could signal that their home was unoccupied. Some 23.7 percent said they had deliberately delayed posting vacation photos for that reason.

More than half of all respondents — 53.3 percent — said they had experienced some kind of threat after leaving their home empty. The most common incidents were finding unfamiliar traces at the front door (36.5 percent), missing parcels (16.2 percent) and unknown individuals captured on CCTV footage (10.2 percent). As a result, 83.8 percent of single-person households and 87.0 percent of multi-person households said they had felt the need to monitor their homes in real time while on vacation.

"Worries about empty homes are shifting away from burglary and toward parcel theft at the door and concern for pets," S1 said. "The telltale signs that burglars target are also changing — from stacked newspapers and milk bottles out front to delivery labels piling up."