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Don't forget your key ?
MIL had a keysafe for the carers visiting as she couldn't move - I wasn't sure they were safe at all, but we had no alternative.
Get a smart lock instead of hiding key.
I have a smart garage door. If someone needs to get in and doesn't have a key, they can use their phone app or give me a ring. Very handy.
Have you got an apple tag on your spare key or something.
No, just 32 years experience of looking for keys or people telling me where they hide it. There are exceptions where people hide them where you’d not look. Trees aren’t necessarily one of them by the way.
Can’t you access the Router from outside? Just switch off the internet to gain their attention
This. Attach the router via a smartplug - then alexa/whomever can turn it off by shouting or the app.
They’re generally about as secure as hanging a key on a hook. I can pop them open in about the time it’d take you to dial in a code you already knew.
Depends on the model, no one has cracked the one we use, I had a good search on Youtube last time this came up and not a single video on it. They had an earlier one which was cracked but then redesigned to isolate the number pins from the release button so the apply tension and fiddle with the buttons thing doesn't work.
https://keysafe.co.uk/c500-keysafe.html
And judging by the number of keysafes you see on houses (of all makes) picking them can't be a popular attack method as they are everywhere now.
Easiest option is to stop locking yourself out of your own home thus negating the need for a spare key or place to hide it. Do people really lock themselves out on a regular basis? I don’t recall ever locking myself out and now I’ve typed that it’ll happen tomorrow
very rare these days as only old folk still use night latch type locks that can slam on you , it’s more i think losing / misplaying key while out ? people off their faces lose all sorts , heads especially , but phones and keys very common ........if you don’t get in such states you should narrow the odds
Can’t you access the Router from outside? Just switch off the internet to gain their attention
This. Attach the router via a smartplug – then alexa/whomever can turn it off by shouting or the app.
Sounds rather complicated when you could just send messages via their game service app (XBOX, PSN, Steam etc.). Constantly.
Easiest option is to stop locking yourself out of your own home thus negating the need for a spare key or place to hide it. Do people really lock themselves out on a regular basis? I don’t recall ever locking myself out and now I’ve typed that it’ll happen tomorrow
Here it’s me nipping out for a run or a ride thinking wife isn’t going out…..don’t take keys then she nips to the shop just before I arrive home.
Keep one in the car. And also bring a spare with you when out in a separate pocket/bag.
This thread reminded me about coming home from school in the days before mobiles and the internet, to discover I'd forgotten house key and nobody was home. I looked through window to side of door to see my key fob on the chest of drawers.
Found a long bamboo pole in the garden, pushed one end through the letterbox and after a few attempts through the keyring, raised the far end of the pole to get the keys to slide down to the letterbox and into my other hand... Saved waiting outside for a couple of hours! 😆
thieves will always go for the easiest brick so they won’t ever find the key.
Oh course they will, it’s easier to hit the window with it if they’re closer!
Our emergency key is in the electricity meter cupboard.
At the risk of repeating myself,
Pro tip: think “where can I hide this?” and then under no circumstances hide it there because your first answer will be the first place a burglar will look.
At the very least, don't make it immediately visible when you open the door.
Depends on the model, no one has cracked the one we use,
I don't know that particular model so you may be right but,
And judging by the number of keysafes you see on houses (of all makes) picking them can’t be a popular attack method as they are everywhere now.
picking was never a popular attack method outside of legitimate locksmiths attempting to gain access non-destructively. The question you need to consider is whether it can be opened with a four pound lump hammer and either a wrecking bar or a robust flatblade.
Easiest option is to stop locking yourself out of your own home thus negating the need for a spare key or place to hide it. Do people really lock themselves out on a regular basis? I don’t recall ever locking myself out and now I’ve typed that it’ll happen tomorrow
I'm almost inclined to say "try it and see what you'd do."
I was locked out once. Years ago I'd replaced the Yale-style latch lock with a 5-lever mortice at the behest of my insurer's. Then one day my then-girlfriend locked it when I no longer carried the key. A single size 8 drop-kick delivered by a 10-stone weakling was sufficient to blast the strike plate clean off the doorframe.
Much later, a phone call from an ex who'd locked herself out, same style of lock. I shimmed that in less time than it took to cut up a 2L Coke bottle to fashion the shim. I quote her, "well, that was sobering."
In the corporate world we have penetration testing and disaster recovery testing. Test your own security, if you can stove in your front door then so can anyone else.
Best place to hide a spare key is nowhere near the door. If someone's going to search for it, they'll start closest to the door they're trying to get into and then broaden the search, thus taking longer and potentially more likely to give up/run out of time/get caught.
Way back when i was living in a flat alone I locked myself out, while rushing up and down stairs packing my car to go and see my girlfriend on the south coast. Luckily my neighbour was a joiner and was happy enough to drill out the lock and fit a new one in the time it took me to finish packing. Did have to give a spare key to the rental agency though.
Nowadays I live in a place so isolated there's nobody that would hear if someone decided to break in. It's not really worth locking the place, but we still do out of habit. There's no locks on the windows though. I once accidentally broke into my own shed by riding my motorbike through the roller door! They're useless.
picking was never a popular attack method outside of legitimate locksmiths attempting to gain access non-destructively. The question you need to consider is whether it can be opened with a four pound lump hammer and either a wrecking bar or a robust flatblade.
As I said before, my technicians fit these keysafes for a living, they know their way around them very well. When they need to force access, they can only do it by spending a long time attaching it with angle grinder. They are very, very secure, almost certainly not the weak spot on any house.
If you have a four pound lump hammer in your hand then there are much easier ways of getting inside!
There is however a world of a difference, and price, between a Supra P500 and an £14 ebay special.
very rare these days as only old folk still use night latch type locks that can slam on you
I had a look at the doors in B&Q and the most expensive one there still had the lock-yourself-out type latch. Worst design ever.
don’t take keys
Always take keys. And a phone. You won't need them until you do!
Get a fake doggy poo on garden lawn and stick it in that. Just be careful you know which is fake
I don’t know that particular model so you may be right but,
Supra C500.
https://keysafe.co.uk/products/key-safes/police-preferred/c500-keysafe.html
Get a fake doggy poo on garden lawn and stick it in that. Just be careful you know which is fake
What…fake dog poo?
Souvenirs, novelties, party tricks... 🤣
🖐️
I wonder how many burglars google "Where should I hide my spare key ?" 😕
Out of interest, for those saying the night latch is a bad design.. what is the alternative for a door with an existing night latch and mortise lock? Short of replacing the door that is…
Under a piece of granite by the front door.
Out of interest, for those saying the night latch is a bad design..
Given its been the most common lock in the UK for as long as I can remember and there isn't a national outcry over people locking themselves out, it would seem to be a bit of a 'non issue'.
What's good about it is, you can't forget to lock the front door as long as you close it and you can always get out (say in the event of a fire) without a key.
I once had a Mondeo with push button start. I forgot something in the house, left the car running, took keys to open house, searched for whatever I had left behind, departed the house, got in car. Realised I had a running car and had left the keys in the now locked house.
These days, I have spare key outside and my car key (no longer push button) and house key on separate keyrings... But my front door requires manual locking! So I definitely won't go through that again 😁
hmmm, it’s a design that is inherently insecure , the keep is held by three small screws to the frame , a kick and it breaks , but crucially many do inadvertently end up locked out , when i worked for the council it was not uncommon , people would put the latch on , go out , to the garden , the door would slam in wind , the latch would release and bingo they’re locked out .
So apart from being insecure and locking people out , i suppose they work , but really , no one should fit them any more .
bassmandan , if you’ve a mortice lock , then you’re fairly secure from a door point of view , the latch is unnecessary security wise , is your mortice a five lever with handle or a deadlock type ( just a key , no handle ) .
If so , you can fit a five lever with handle etc to compliment it , do away with the night latch , double secure then , and never accidentally get locked out , the only issue is being trapped inside in a emergency , keys in locks is best when inside with these , no one has a chance in a smoke filled emergency of finding keys and then the holes .....
What he said ☝ only with better punctuation.
Yale-style slam latches are a terrible, outdated design. The ease of which it's possible to accidentally lock yourself out is offset only by the ease of which it's possible to break back in again. The best thing you can do to improve your security is remove it.
If "leaving the house without locking it" is an actual genuine concern then I'd question whether you're safe to be out of the house unaccompanied in the first place.
TBH being accidentally locked out is way down my list of concerns. It's happened once, about 15 years ago.
We've got one of the more expensive night latches that auto deadlocks with a little pin that pushes in as the door closes (to stop the latch being pushed back without a key) so tend to only use the mortice lock when out for the day etc (rather than nipping round the shops). I figure someone kicking in my front door is likely to be quite noticeable.
I'd not considered getting a 5 lever lock with a handle, the only question then is what do you do with the sodding great hole the night latch leaves in the door?
you can leave the brass barrel in or as is usual plug it with timber , if it’s a real fancy hardwood door , unless you can get matching timber to make a plug out of , a brass barrel doesnt look that bad from outside ......
for the regular occasions one of us locks ourselves out.
Sorry if someone has already mentioned it but just stop doing this. It's idiotic.
Gave it some thought today and can only recall being locked in by drunken friends. Had a few mates over drinking and I had to go to bed early so told them they could stay as long as they liked if they locked up and posted the key. Dickheads only did the first bit.
I once thought I was locked out. My neighbour was halfway through dismantling the lock on my door when I found the key in one of my pockets. He was not amused.
If you’re doing it on a regular basis you need to move in with an adult. Can’t fathom why you’d want to hide a key somewhere. Surely if you can lock yourself out on a frequent basis you’re not remembering where you hid that key.
Point out that you are not dropping the price whatever any surveys say and that may weed out a few. I did much the same and when a buyer tried to haggle I to them no sale and why. Boy was that fun.
ooh 😮
I figure someone kicking in my front door is likely to be quite noticeable.
It is, but the point you're overlooking is, no-one cares. I hoofed my front door through at about 1pm on a sunny Thursday, no-one blinked.
what do you do with the sodding great hole the night latch leaves in the door?
Leave the external bit in situ? TBH you could just remove the strike plate from the door jamb and forgeddaboudit, no need to touch the door at all.
I'm surprised at all the people who think getting locked out is difficult.
Unless you mean it's hard to get locked out *unless you have slam latches*. In which case, yeah, fair enough.
hmmm, it’s a design that is inherently insecure , the keep is held by three small screws to the frame ,
Speak for yourself, mine is held in with three 110m framing screws! You can kick it as much as you like, it isn't going anywhere without taking the frame with it!
Many many years ago I had a female lodger and someone followed her back from the pub and tried to kick the door in to assault her. It was a really basic Yale model with three short screws. He didn't manage it although it was a bit loose, but still held.
https://yalehome.co.uk/yale-essentials-nightlatch-60mm-in-green/
I now have a monster Yale model held in with framing fixings.
https://yalehome.co.uk/bs1-max-security-nightlatch/
I’m surprised at all the people who think getting locked out is difficult.
Unless you mean it’s hard to get locked out *unless you have slam latches*. In which case, yeah, fair enough.
Nope, lived in a house with one of those shite Yale locks for years in my mid teens to mid twenties and never managed to lock myself out despite being hammered or high 90% of the time.
People who question how hard it is to get locked out clearly don't have teenage kids.
Mine happily head out to school / work / mates and wave as they trot down the drive. I then head out on my bike, they come home and don't have their keys. That is why I have a key locker.
I don't like self slamming Yale type locks but I also question the wisdom on needing a key to lock or unlock the door from inside. If I was running out of the house with my face on fire in the dark, I wouldn't want to have to root around for keys if they hadn't been left in the door. I don't understand why they cant put turn knob on the inside instead of having the key slot open.
I don’t like self slamming Yale type locks but I also question the wisdom on needing a key to lock or unlock the door from inside.
With eurolocks you can get a thumbturn option on the inner barrel half.
Personally I like the Yale night latch + Chubb deadlock combo. If I'm leaving the house empty all doors deadlock so if someone bricks a window and climbs in they're taking my bike back through that window (if it will fit). But when we're in the house, we never use the deadlock, and you can always get out without a key using the night latch.
I’ll repeat myself , the keep design on yale locks , has screws that aren’t really embedded in the frame , they are in superficially , ive had to repair countless broken frame mouldings due to these being kicked in , just the way it is . You won’t kick a mortise lock in though , need a door breaker for that .
And thumb turns should be on all interior upvc doors for safety ......no one can break the glass to get at them , kicking the panel in is easier , whoops shouldn’t really be encouraging paranoia
And thumb turns should be on all interior upvc doors for safety ……no one can break the glass to get at them , kicking the panel in is easier , whoops shouldn’t really be encouraging paranoia
When I replaced all my eurolocks with matching keys I didn't go for a thumb turn on the front door because I reckoned someone with a skinny arm could reach in the letter box and turn it.
Nope, lived in a house with one of those shite Yale locks for years in my mid teens to mid twenties and never managed to lock myself out despite being hammered or high 90% of the time.
Well I've lived where I am for 11 years and I've locked myself out once and was grateful for my hidden key.
If we assume my family members do it at the same rate as me that's once every 24 months, and they do it a lot more than me.
I don't think we're especially moronic, it's just a fairly easy mistake to make.