We’ve all been at the front door of our locked house franticly searching for the key and after a few minutes you realize you don’t have it. The kids are complaining in the background and the ice-cream is melting on the sidewalk. You’re locked out again and your spouse won’t be home for another five hours. You can only do this so many times before you break down and decide that something must be done. Here are a few décor options that can be used to decorate and hide your keys.
Purchasing a Trendy Door Mat
Door mats come in a variety of colors and designs. They can be a trendy and fun way to personalize your home. That being said, you should never “hide” your house key under your door mat. That will be the first place that a burglar will look. You might as well leave your door open.
Hide-A-Key Figurines
The second most obvious décor to hide a key in is your outside decorations. We have all seen the advertisements, cutesy animals that serve the dual purpose of hiding your keys and blending in with your yard design. Once again. Too obvious.
Hide-A-Key Rocks
Rocks are a solid décor choice. Rocks come in a variety of colors, shapes, and sizes. They can be just the thing to complete any garden or line any walkway. That being said, why wouldn’t I want to purchase a fake rock to hide my key in?
The safety of this plan has to do with the intelligence of the intruder, the quality of the rock purchased, and the number of rocks you have lining your home. With a high quality fake rock, an intruder with the intelligence of a rock, and a yard with dozens of rocks, I’d say go for it. In any other circumstance I would seek another option.
Hide-A-Key Thermostats
The appeal of Hide-A-Key thermostats and sprinkler heads is that I didn’t know that they existed before I wrote this article. That is a good sign. If I didn’t know, it means that your average intruder would also be unaware. That being said, the thermostats available are tacky, cheap plastic. It would look out of place at a house with expensive additions. In those circumstances the intruder might be able to determine where the key is located.
Hide-A-Key Sprinkler Heads
Sprinkler heads like thermostats are not a commonly known key-hiding place. An additional appeal of a sprinkler head hide-a-key is that it will blend in with a dozen or so other sprinkler heads. For this to work the fake sprinkler head should be very similar in appearance to the real sprinkler heads.
After Thoughts
Before purchasing one of the hide-a-key options you should try to determine how easy the item is to locate online. If you go to Google images, type hide-a-key and the figurine is the first image you come across, you can be sure that a tech savvy thief would be able to find it in two seconds with his smart phone.
When hiding a key, you should think outside the box. If you trust your neighbor, why not hide the key on in one of the hide-a-key items on their yard. It won’t matter how obvious it is, if they expect the key to open the door of the wrong house. Similar strategies can be used to make mundane-obvious items safer than they appear. If all else fails, you can spend some money to replace your door knob with a keyless door knob that is opened with a pin code or a fingerprint.
Photo courtesy of Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/chalet-maison-jaune/4367049955/sizes/z/in/photostream/
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Chubb Locksmiths Sutton Coldfield
An interesting suggestion with the hide a key boxes – you have to be careful as a lot of the hide a key boxes are instantly recognisable and can look out of place. At out locksmiths we don’t recommend that customers use these as thieves know to look for them now. Instead ensure you door is fully secure with a deadbolt and anti-bump and snap locks and you’ll be fine.