Let us start with what few commercial websites are willing to write: Ganshoren is a quiet municipality. 109 residential burglaries in 2025, or 2.1 per week, and 27.8% fewer than in 2019. This is not a figure that justifies spending without thinking, and that is precisely why it is worth looking item by item at what an installation really costs — and at what, in a quote, serves no purpose here.
Ganshoren in figures: a low series, but one that is slowly rising
| Year | Residential burglaries |
|---|---|
| 2019 | 151 |
| 2020 | 88 |
| 2021 | 96 |
| 2022 | 100 |
| 2023 | 105 |
| 2024 | 107 |
| 2025 | 109 |
An honest reading of this table fits into two sentences. Yes, 2025 is 27.8% below 2019: the decline is real. But all of that decline happened in one go, between 2019 and 2020, when homes remained occupied — and since then, the curve has been rising gently and without exception: 88, 96, 100, 105, 107, 109. The change over one year is +1.9%.
In other words, Ganshoren is no longer falling: it is slowly returning to its previous level. Nothing alarming — we are talking about a few incidents a year, in a municipality whose peak, 202 incidents in 2015, is almost twice the current level. But the recent trend does not point in the direction that the six-year percentage suggests.
One last reference point: of the 127 burglaries in buildings recorded in 2025, 86% targeted a home. In Ganshoren, burglary is a residential phenomenon.
What really drives the price of an installation, item by item
An alarm quote always breaks down in the same way, and the final amount depends far less on the brand than on the number of doors and windows to be covered. Here is where the money goes.
- The control panel. A single, unavoidable item, and the one that determines everything else: capacity in number of devices, radio range and, above all, whether or not a subscription is compulsory. See the control panels and our article on alarms without a subscription.
- Opening detectors. This is the item that multiplies: one magnetic contact per genuinely exposed access point. Three doors and a patio window do not cost the same as a single front door.
- Motion detectors. Fewer in number than the contacts, they cover the areas people pass through. Those with photo verification cost more, but solve the verification problem.
- The outdoor siren and the keypad. Single items, often neglected, even though the siren is the element that interrupts a break-in in progress.
- Video, if it is justified. A camera is never a stand-alone item: a recorder and storage must be added. See the surveillance hard drives, designed for continuous writing — an office hard drive wears out within a few months in this use.
For an average house in Ganshoren, the order of magnitude for a coherent detection set-up lies between a few hundred and around two thousand euros of equipment, depending on the number of access points to be covered. An alarm kit covers the entry level; beyond three or four exposed doors and windows, a custom configuration generally works out cheaper than a kit topped up piece by piece.
The three costs that do not appear in the quote
The purchase price is not the cost of ownership, and three items regularly escape the calculation.
The subscription. Some systems require one to work or to access your own images. Over five or ten years, this line often exceeds the price of the equipment. An installation without a compulsory subscription shifts the expense to the initial purchase, which is more expensive at the outset and considerably cheaper afterwards.
Video storage. The desired retention period, the number of cameras and the resolution determine the capacity of the drive, and this is a trade-off to make before buying, not after. Our article on the number of TB needed for four cameras sets out the calculation.
Annual maintenance. It is not optional: Belgian law requires it for an alarm system. It is a recurring line to include from the start.
The free item that almost nobody uses
Before any expense, one measure costs nothing: a visit from the theft prevention adviser of the Brussels West police zone (5340), which Ganshoren belongs to. The adviser comes to your home, examines the actual access points and sells nothing. In a municipality where the risk is moderate, their main contribution is budgetary: they avoid equipping what does not need it.
The municipal prevention service is the other point of contact, via the prevention page of the municipality of Ganshoren. This is also where the question of financial support should be raised. A word on this, plainly: some Belgian municipalities award a home security grant, and these grants fund mechanical protection — cylinders, locks, locking points, burglar-resistant glazing, frames. Alarms and cameras are almost always excluded. We have no official source on the existence of such regulations in Ganshoren and we will not invent any: ask the prevention service, and build your budget on the assumption that detection remains entirely at your expense.
Where to put the money in a Ganshoren house
Local housing is mixed: terraced and semi-detached houses, small gardens, garages and outbuildings. The budget should follow this layout rather than a standard list.
The front façade, visible from the street, is almost never the point of entry. The useful money goes to the rear: kitchen door, patio window, conservatory, and to the connection between garage and house, where a lightweight connecting door cancels out the benefit of a good front door. A small garden enclosed by a hedge or a low wall offers the intruder exactly what they are looking for: a workspace out of sight.
In this context, the order of budgetary priorities is as follows: first the opening contacts on the rear access points and the garage door, then an outdoor siren, then an indoor detector on the unavoidable passage, and only after that a camera if the plot is deep or the outbuilding detached. Reversing this order — starting with four cameras — costs more and detects later.
What the law requires, and what it changes in the budget
Three obligations have a direct effect on the bill. The verification requirement before police intervention means that a purely audible alarm does not bring a patrol: investing in photo verification is not a luxury, it is what makes the alert usable. The annual maintenance and the annual confirmation of the registration via police-on-web are recurring lines — the registration itself, within ten days, is free. Finally, the outdoor siren limited to three minutes and the ban on filming the public road or the neighbour’s property determine the equipment and where it is placed. Our guides to registering an alarm and to Belgian CCTV camera law explain these points.
Frequently asked questions
Are there many burglaries in Ganshoren?
No, in volume terms Ganshoren remains a quiet municipality: 109 residential burglaries in 2025, or about 2.1 per week, compared with 151 in 2019. The nuance is that the series has been rising slowly since 2020 (88 incidents), with +1.9% over the last year, rather than continuing to fall.
How much does an alarm for a house in Ganshoren cost?
The price depends above all on the number of access points to be covered, not on the size of the home. The order of magnitude for a coherent set-up ranges from a few hundred to around two thousand euros of equipment depending on the number of access points to be covered, plus the annual maintenance required by law and, for video, the recorder and storage drive.
Can a municipal grant finance my alarm in Ganshoren?
Belgian municipal home-security grants fund mechanical protection — locks, cylinders, burglar-resistant glazing, frames — and almost always exclude alarms and cameras. We have no official source on the existence of such regulations in Ganshoren: ask the municipality’s prevention service before committing to any costs.
Is a subscription needed to run an alarm?
Not necessarily. Some systems make their operation or access to images conditional on a monthly subscription, others do not. Over several years, this line can exceed the cost of the equipment: it is a selection criterion at least as important as the purchase price.
Which police zone does Ganshoren belong to?
Ganshoren falls under the Brussels West police zone (5340). This is the zone from which to request the free visit of the theft prevention adviser, who examines the home’s access points without any commercial interest.
Sources: Police crime statistics, Federal Police DGR/DRI/BIPOL, publication 2025_T04 (cut-off date 24/04/2026) — Ganshoren municipal fact sheet. Municipal prevention: Municipality of Ganshoren. The orders of magnitude quoted relate to equipment and vary according to the number of access points to be covered.