Five years of stability, then a break within twelve months. Sint-Truiden went from 100 residential burglaries in 2024 to 128 in 2025, an increase of 28% which brings the municipality back to its 2019 level. For anyone renovating their home this year, the timing could not have been worse — or better, depending on how you go about it.
Sint-Truiden has wiped out six years of gains in a single year
The series published by the federal police is unusually flat until 2024. After 129 incidents in 2019, the municipality fell to 98 in 2020, then fluctuated within a very narrow band: 99 in 2021, 95 in 2022, 100 in 2023, 100 in 2024. Five consecutive years at around one hundred, which reflects a stable pattern rather than an improvement.
2025 breaks this pattern: 128 incidents, a 28% increase in one year. Compared with 2019, the difference is −0.8%: in other words, Sint-Truiden is back where it started. It would be dishonest to present this municipality as being in decline. It is rising again, and that is the key fact of its 2025 figures. This represents 2.5 residential burglaries per week.
Two nuances, in both directions. The current level remains well below older reference points — 247 incidents in 2000, the highest in the series, and 240 in 2015: the municipality is at roughly half the level it saw ten years ago. However, the concentration on homes is particularly high: of the 159 burglaries in buildings in 2025, homes accounted for 81%.
A building site is an open window, literally
Sint-Truiden’s housing is typical of the Limburg periphery: terraced or semi-detached houses around an old town centre, back gardens, attached garages, extensions. Many of these homes have reached the age at which people insulate, replace window frames and open the kitchen onto the garden. The building-work period creates a vulnerability that is anything but theoretical.
During building work, four things change at once. The perimeter security disappears: a removed door, an opening awaiting glazing, scaffolding giving access to the upper floor cancel out years of mechanical protection. The flow of people explodes: tradespeople, delivery drivers, subcontractors, all legitimate, all strangers. Keys circulate: a set handed over for the duration of the works is a set whose copies you no longer control. Finally, vacancy becomes visible — a skip in front of the door, shutters missing: a building site signals an empty house far better than a full letterbox.
The useful measures during this phase are modest and temporary. Wireless detection, installed in minutes and moved as the work progresses, covers the access point left open that day: an alarm kit fulfils this role and is then reused in the permanent installation. A Wi-Fi camera aimed at the equipment storage area deters and documents, within the limits of the legal field of view. Finally, replacing the cylinder at the end of the works — not at the start — settles the question of copied keys.
How a renovation changes the risk once it is finished
A renovated house is not automatically a better-protected house. Three counter-intuitive effects are worth anticipating.
Firstly, a renovation opens up. A partition wall is knocked down, a small kitchen window is replaced by a large glazed opening onto the garden, a conservatory is added. The gain in comfort is real; the glazed area on the rear façade, the one nobody can see from the street, has grown accordingly.
Secondly, a new window frame is not necessarily a resistant one. Thermal performance and burglar resistance are two distinct characteristics: burglar-resistant glazing, security hardware and additional locking points have to be ordered; they are not included by default.
Thirdly, a visibly renovated house signals a recent investment. New façade, new frames, a skip that has just left: all of this can be read from the street, and works against the intention.
The practical consequence is simple: the right time to decide on security is the design phase, not the end of the works. Running the conduits while the walls are open costs almost nothing; opening them up again afterwards is expensive.
The Sint-Truiden grant: real, useful, and tightly capped
Sint-Truiden awards a home security grant: 25% of the costs, up to a maximum of €125 per dwelling. It covers burglary-delaying measures — security locks, reinforced cylinders, security glazing.
Two clarifications are needed.
This grant covers neither alarm systems nor CCTV cameras. It exclusively funds mechanical protection. This is the case for virtually all Belgian municipal grants, and it is a confusion that many websites perpetuate: no municipality will reimburse an alarm under this type of aid.
Next, the cap is low, and this needs to be said frankly. At €125 maximum, the cap is reached from €500 of work: the grant covers the equivalent of one fitted security lock, not a security project. It is worth applying for, but it does not change a budget. The conditions and procedure are set out on the City of Sint-Truiden’s page on burglaries, which also refers to the free prevention advice.
That advice is precisely the logical complement. Sint-Truiden falls under the Sint-Truiden / Gingelom / Nieuwerkerken local police (5376), whose theft prevention adviser visits free of charge and provides written advice on your actual access points. During a renovation, this visit has particular value: it takes place before the choices are set in stone.
Wired or wireless: the trade-off specific to building work
This is the only technical question that a renovation settles differently from the rest of the time.
While the walls are open, a wired installation becomes economically reasonable again, and it eliminates the question of batteries over the lifetime of the system. The Ajax Fibra range is designed for this scenario. Once the plasterwork has been redone, this reasoning is completely reversed: wireless becomes the only non-destructive option, and it is now equivalent in reliability.
In a Sint-Truiden house renovated in phases, a mixed configuration is often the best fit: wired where the works have been, wireless elsewhere, on a single control panel, with a monitoring tool such as X-Observer to keep track of a system that evolves over the months. The choice of detectors and magnetic contacts on the new doors and windows comes next; our guide which Ajax alarm to choose in Belgium sets out the criteria.
What Belgian law requires, building work or not
Any alarm must be registered within ten days of installation via police-on-web, confirmed every year and serviced annually. The outdoor siren is limited to three minutes and verification is mandatory before any police intervention. These rules derive from the Royal Decree of 25 April 2007 and are federal: see our guide to registering an alarm system. A practical point for renovations: the registration is made when the system is finally commissioned, not when the first temporary detector is installed.
Any camera must be registered on declarationcamera.be, requires a regulatory pictogram and a register of processing activities, and may not film public roads or the neighbour’s property. A site camera aimed at the street to monitor deliveries is therefore not permitted. Details can be found in our article on Belgian CCTV camera law.
Frequently asked questions
How many burglaries were recorded in Sint-Truiden in 2025?
128 residential burglaries were recorded in Sint-Truiden in 2025, or 2.5 per week. That is a 28% increase compared with 2024 (100 incidents), bringing the municipality almost back to its 2019 level (129 incidents).
Does the Sint-Truiden grant cover an alarm or a camera?
No. The Sint-Truiden municipal grant, 25% of the costs capped at €125 per dwelling, funds only burglary-delaying measures: security locks, reinforced cylinders, security glazing. Alarm systems and CCTV cameras are excluded.
Is the Sint-Truiden grant enough for a security project?
No, and you need to know this before building a budget on it. With a cap of €125, reached from €500 of work, the grant covers roughly the cost of one fitted security lock. It is worth applying for, but it does not change the economics of a complete project.
Should the alarm be installed during or after the works?
The decision is made during the design phase. While the walls are open, a wired installation becomes economically reasonable again; once the plasterwork has been redone, only wireless remains non-destructive. Temporary wireless protection can cover the duration of the works and then be reused in the permanent installation.
Where can I get free theft prevention advice in Sint-Truiden?
From the theft prevention adviser of the Sint-Truiden / Gingelom / Nieuwerkerken local police (5376), reachable via the city’s page on burglaries. The visit is free of charge, has no commercial purpose, and the written advice covers the actual access points of your home.
Sources: Police crime statistics, Federal Police DGR/DRI/BIPOL, publication 2025_T04 (cut-off date 24/04/2026) — Sint-Truiden municipal fact sheet. Municipal grant and prevention advice: City of Sint-Truiden. Police zone: local police 5376. Grant amounts and conditions change from one financial year to the next: check with the municipality before incurring any costs.