OK

shinmeikai, meikyo

honestly, i get that the third sense is more common, but at least historically we have tried to avoid listing abbreviated meanings before the original unabbreviated ones.  to me, this listing of senses makes far, far more sense when looking at the entry and trying to figure it out.  the user should be able to figure out when it means burglary and when not

this just seems like better practice for a dictionary

@@ -23,0 +24,9 @@
+<gloss>empty nest</gloss>
+</sense>
+<sense>
+<pos>&n;</pos>
+<gloss>empty house</gloss>
+<gloss>empty home</gloss>
+</sense>
+<sense>
+<pos>&n;</pos>
@@ -31,8 +39,0 @@
-<sense>
-<pos>&n;</pos>
-<gloss>empty nest</gloss>
-</sense>
-<sense>
-<pos>&n;</pos>
-<gloss>empty house</gloss>
-</sense>

"空き巣の侵入を防ぐには"
native informant reads this as sense 3.
On "latest" on twitter I agree sense 1 is 
more common, though I see some sense 3 
tweets as well. Yeah, I don't know either. 
The entry might be more pedagogic with 
"empty house" first, but 
"burglary/burglar" do seem more common 
online.

I find that very surprising given the JEs example sentences and top results online. From the first page of Google results: "空き巣の手口を具体的に紹介", "空き巣の侵入を防ぐには", "空き巣対策", "空き巣被害には遭いたくないものですが", "空き巣がどのようにして住居に侵入するか".
Twitter is the same. Virtually all the tweets I skimmed over were sense 1.

2 native speakers (Kyushu, Osaka) 
initially agreed that 空き巣 does NOT refer 
to the burglar and not to the burglary - 
but when given example sentences relented. 
i think thisis a sign "empty house" should 
come first.