Police have urged residents to help them prevent a seasonal rise in burglaries by ensuring they keep their homes secure when the weather is warm.
Leicestershire Police said burglars take advantage of rising temperatures and muggy atmospheres when people leave windows and doors open to ventilate their homes.
Some scour neighbourhoods for insecure houses and nip into those with open doors or windows to steal the contents, typically small, portable items such as laptop computers and mobile phones.
Officers stressed people should keep windows and doors locked while they are out, when they are upstairs or even when they are enjoying the sun in their back gardens.
Inspector Simon Preston, commander of city centre police, said: "This is a key time of year for us because people tend to open their windows and doors and then forget to close and lock them
"It's a very simple message we try to get across to people at this time of year when the warmer weather arrives.
"That is there are people out there looking for opportunities to commit burglaries and open windows and doors are an invitation to them."
Leicestershire Police is to launch an awareness campaign to highlight the risks of leaving your home insecure.
Officers in neighbourhoods across the city and county will urge residents to follow basic steps to keep their homes safe and secure.
In previous years they have dropped leaflets through open windows or doors to warn the occupants that an intruder would have been able to gain entry.
Recorded crime has been falling consistently in the past few years.
Between September 2014 and 2015 burglary fell a further three per cent to a total of 1,770, according to figures published earlier this year by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
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