Mam has one , Dad has one and the kids have one each front door keys we all use them and we all need them they are essential to our every day routine – when we need them most of the time they are there in our pocket. Occasionally we lose them but the invariably turn up in the last place we look – the joy of keys.
How many do you have for your home – a couple for the parents and a couple for the kids – one for Grandma when she babysits, maybe a couple of spares possibly 7 or 8 is not that unusual.
You decide to move home and after the trauma’s that it brings the day to exchange comes and you round up the keys – Grandma and one of the kids cannot find theirs one of the spares has disappeared so you hand over four of the eight you had – but what happens to the others – your an honest bunch so when you find them you dispose of them sensibly.
Your new home with its 4 new keys is great but what if the previous owners also had 8 keys and were not as honest as your family and did not dispose of them sensibly – and what if one of those keys fell into the hands of a teenage burglar (statistics suggest that 16-24 year olds commit 48% of all burglaries) – in the panic and elation of the move you forget to change the locks on your new home – you know what comes next. One night when no one is home that missing key is used to illegally enter your home and your possessions disappear –
Implausible, impossible – unfortunately not so those same statistics suggest that 5% of all burglaries are carried out using a key to property and they are not only those who foolishly leave keys in supposedly safe hiding places – under the mat etc . A recent article from the Neighbourhood Watch Charity highlights the results of a recently undertaken survey – two thirds of 6000 surveyed did not change their locks when they moved house and of those two thirds 86.2% did not even consider changing the locks – not the brightest of moves when 92% of UK burglaries occur through the front door
And the moral of the story – if you have numerous keys so will others be safe whenever you move house change locks immediately
