All anyone can do is simply make it difficult and as noisy as possible for the perp to gain access or get close enough to do harm. Take as many advantages away from them as you can. A win/win situation is where they simply give up and leave. Their life is spared and homeowner is spared years of litigation and upper tens of thousands of dollars in legal expenses.
We used to live out in the country off a highway with no neighbors anywhere close. I feel safer here than I did there and that was before crime and drugs became so rampant everywhere.
When we lived there in the mid 60’s a man came to our door and I innocently open it. He asked me if the Kennedy’s lived here or the Johnsons. It was during JFK and LBJ term.
When he asked me that I felt a chill go down my spine. He was just fishing. There was a pick up sitting by the garage and he kept looking at it. I don’t know if he thought a man might be in the house or if he was just wondering if he could find the keys.
He didn’t do anything but he thought about it as he slowly walked back down our driveway. I called the sheriff and he came and picked him up.
There was a prison farm not far away and from the look of him, he had just been released.