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Using techniques developed in the field of epidemiology, recent research conducted in both the UK (Johnson and Bowers 2004) and Australia (Townsley et al. 2003) demonstrates that the risk of victimisation can be treated as communicable. That is, following a burglary at one home the risk of burglary at nearby homes is amplified. This heightened risk endures for a shot period of time, typically one month. The pattern has been labelled the `near repeat' phenomenon, and the results have clear implications for crime prevention and for the prediction of future patterns of crime. One question that has remained unanswered concerns the similarity of the Modus Operandi (MO) used in near repeat events. If similar this may suggest a common offender across a crime series. It may also allow us to increase the accuracy of attempts to predict how, as well as when and where, crime will be committed. In this paper, we compare the similarity of the MOs of near repeat and unrelated burglary events, and demonstrate that for the farmer the configuration of `the means of entry' and `point of entry' are significantly more congruent than for the latter. The implications of the results are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]