When you lead a busy life you rely on your schedule and predictable behaviour to get you through. One thing I can always bank on is that my house keys will always be in my left hand coat pocket or in the zip compartment of my bag. But what if one day they aren’t? What if I haven’t picked them up and have no way to get in?
I live with two housemates so there is usually someone around to let me in but they do work jobs with parallel times to mine. If we’re lucky we’ll high five as I come home and they leave for work. This makes leaving my keys at home a huge problem if our schedules don’t sync up perfectly. Because of this I have suggested we leave a spare set of keys somewhere outside.
My housemates think it’s a terrible idea and according to new research by Canary Home Security, they might be right. Canary’s poll of 2,000 adults found that one in ten have been burgled in the last year and hiding your key in a predictable place doesn’t help get that number down.
According to their research the most popular place for Brits to hide their keys are:
1. In the garage/outside store room
2. Under a plant pot
3. In a keysafe
4. Buried in the garden
5. Under the mat
6. Under a windowsill
7. Inside a fake lock
8. Under a garden gnome
9. In a dog house
10. Under a garden ornament
Now I happen to think some of those are inspired ideas but unfortunately to thieves this makes getting in that much simpler. If you make your money by taking other peoples, you need to know your craft and knowing your craft as a thief includes knowing the top ten places people hide their spare set of keys. It doesn’t matter how cleaver you think you are with your hiding spot, burglars have seen it all before and it’s second nature to them.
I was burgled last year, they smashed through the window of my bedroom and stole my laptop.
It wasn’t a great feeling but I’m sure I would have felt so much worse if there hadn’t been a broken window, If they had come through the front door using the spare key I’d hidden. In truth I don’t even know if my home insurance would cover me for that, I wouldn’t be surprised if that falls under being reckless with your property, preventing me from being able to claim back by stolen items. The truth is as the dark nights draw in the number of burglaries always tends to rise and we all need to think about how we keep our properties safe.
Unfortunately when it comes to home security it appears Brits might be a little too trusting, 48 per cent keep the windows open even when they aren’t at home.
A spokesman for Canary Home Security said, “Our home is meant to be somewhere we feel safe and secure. “While it’s great that we are trusting and feel safe enough to go out and leave our windows open and front door unlocked, this is leaving some of our most prized possessions at risk – especially irreplaceable sentimental items.”
The nights are getting darker earlier everyday which means if you haven’t seriously considered your security, you are running out of time. Trust me, there is no worse feeling then walking in to your home and seeing you’re things littering the floor, that moment of thinking to yourself, did I make that mess?
That moment of realising you’ve been burgled, the panic when you start to look around your room to check on your valuable items. And that feeling of injustice when you realise your valuables have been taken. Perhaps worse of all the feeling knowing you didn’t back up some important pictures/documents that are now lost forever.
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