Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also daydrum) to knock on a front door to ascertain whether or not the home owner is in; if they are not, the house is broken into and robbed.

1930		(con. 1910s) D. Mackenzie Hell’s Kitchen 123: One of them will go to a house in the afternoon or early evening and ‘drum’ the establishment. In other words, he knocks or rings. If no one answers the summons the others are called up and they get to work.
1935		Thieves Slang ms list from District Police Training Centre, Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Warwicks n.p.: Daydrumming: Daylight housebreaking [ibid.] 4: Drumming: Housebreaking .
1936		J. Curtis Gilt Kid 23: A bloke drummed it for me and put me wide. Let her pick him up one night and she lumbered him home. And while he’s there he takes a butchers’.
1951		P. Hoskins No Hiding Place! 23: He had been killed by a housebreaker who specialised in [...] ‘sounding the drum’. Such a man rings door-bells, and when [...] no amount of ringing or knocking can produce an answer, he assumes that the place is empty and breaks in.
1955		B. Hill Boss of Britain’s Underworld 28: She enjoyed drumming with us. Her job was to knock on the door of a gaff to see if ther was anyone in [...] No one in the world would have suspected an olive-complexioned coloured girl, a smashing looker she was too, of drumming for a burglars’ gang.
2004		N. ‘Razor’ Smith A Few Kind Words and a Loaded Gun 38: You’re out drumming. We’ve watched you knocking on doors to see if people are in and trying to get round the backs of houses.

2. to steal from an empty or unoccupied house.

1935		A.J. Pollock Und. Speaks.
1956		‘Charles Raven’ Und. Nights 15: He gave up this form of ‘drumming’ (as they call daylight-theft from empty premises). [Ibid.] 203: Dips dip, drummers drum, hoisters hoist.
1992		in R. Graef Living Dangerously 89: I don’t do cars, or drum (burgle) people’s houses.