Police have stepped up their regular patrols and urged residents to keep their doors and windows locked after three Mt. Lebanon homes were entered last week and items taken.

The three reported burglaries all occurred in the Sunset Hills neighborhood.

The first incident was reported Jan. 19, Lt. Aaron Lauth of the Mt. Lebanon Police Department said. Sometime between midnight and 5 a.m., the suspect or suspects entered a house in the 100 block of Sleepy Hollow Road and removed 13 DVDs and an Xbox video game system while the residents slept on the top level of the home.

Police believe the house was entered through an unlocked basement window.

The second incident was reported on Friday at a residence in the 300 block of Jonquil Place. At some point between midnight and 7:45 a.m., entry was made through an unlocked front door, and two jackets and two purses containing driver's licenses, credit cards and checkbooks were taken.

The residents were upstairs sleeping, Lt. Lauth said, and the items taken were close to the front door, where the home was entered.

The last reported burglary occurred Friday during the daytime when residents were not home. The residents returned home to a house on the 200 block of Catalpa Place to find a window open and two doors left ajar. Police believe the suspects entered through the unlocked window between 6:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. and exited via the doors.

Items taken from the house include a set of diamond earrings, a set of gold earrings, a gold necklace, two iPods and two digital cameras.

No home burglaries have been reported since Friday, and detectives are still pursuing leads. Lt. Lauth said these appeared to be "crimes of opportunity" made possible by unlocked windows and doors. He asked residents to check their doors and windows to make sure they are locked, even when they are in the house.

"Police are stepping up patrols and asking that residents immediately report anything out of the ordinary, anything suspicious," he said. "The best resources that the neighbors have are each other."

Anyone with information about the burglaries is asked to call the Mt. Lebanon Police Department Investigative Unit at 412-343-4095 or the department's on-duty watch commander at 412-343-4030.

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