Positioning of key safe?

May have one even though we’re fit and healthy . It’s more for if we get locked out . Ours is at the side of the house, so not visible from the road or the drive .
My mums in a flat and hers is by the front door . However the flats have a main entrance which is locked and has entry phones .

I would suggest contacting your local ambulance service and finding out the process to register your keysafe number and it's position with them. It's suprisingly common for people to forget their number at a time of high stress/pain.
I have a key safe, I don't live alone so it's mainly in case I loose my keys and it's on the side of the house at my eye level. Please don't put it too low down. I've spent far too much time kneeling on a wet path in the dark trying to type numbers in to a key safe that's positioned a foot off the ground at a time when every minute counts!

I have a lifeline unit and pendant and the call centre has my keys are number ... it was supplied by the LA. They said it was best to have it where an ambulance person can see it quickly, so it is on the side of the half porch outside my front door.
I guess a thief could get the key if they simply hit it with a mallet, but that is the chance I have to take. On balance I think it is better for help to have good speedy access.

Key safe, not keys are ...

If you have a keysafe it is a good idea to tell your local fire station. They will need the number. It may save them from knocking your front door down if there was an emergency.

I've never understood what's to stop a burglar simply levering off the key box from the wall and taking it away to smash it open in his car or round the corner?

We had one for both our mams. They were visible for carers to get in. No problem.

ixion

I've never understood what's to stop a burglar simply levering off the key box from the wall and taking it away to smash it open in his car or round the corner?

That’s happened twice near me. 🤬

Ask the police for advice, and what type.

I have just got one - and it is going in the garden shed, which has a combination lock on the door.

Its only purpose is because now DH has died, I want a spare key in case I lock myself out.

ixion

I've never understood what's to stop a burglar simply levering off the key box from the wall and taking it away to smash it open in his car or round the corner?

Nothing. That's the dilemma - but on balance I think I am more likely to have another heart attack and need paramedic access than to have a burglar do that. It's a gamble!!

We inherited our keysafe and its hidden secret location from previous property owner. (She was still living here alone at 100 with support from visiting carers) . DH changed the code on the keysafe. Later he changed it again to something I could remember...

DH and I keep spare keys in it just case we get locked out. The code was reset by us and only we know it. local DS has his own set of our keys.

ixion

I've never understood what's to stop a burglar simply levering off the key box from the wall and taking it away to smash it open in his car or round the corner?

A professional burglar can enter any property, no need for keys.

I do not have a key safe, but I use one when I am responsible for opening hired rooms for meetings. What I would ask is that the safe is somewhere that can be lit; trying to open the safe with a torch or phone in one hand and pressing numbers with the other is not easy, particularly when it is raining.

The majority of break ins are opportunist. Yes, someone could lever it off go somewhere else to break into it, but these safes are very sturdily built to make wrenching them off the wall difficult and any one trying to do so would make lot of noise.

So theoretically it is possible but very unlikely to be done unless the burglar comes with malice afore thought with the intention of stealing your fabulously expensive Renoir painting that you are always boasting about.

I inherited a key safe when I bought my bungalow but didn’t know the combination number. I’ve left it where it is by the front door and put the new one with keys for both front and back doors round the back. The combination for my side gate is the same so only one set of numbers to give people.
I like to think the one by the front door acts as a decoy.

Check with your home insurers that a key safe won't compromise your insurance, some insurers will only accept key safes that meet a certain standard.

After an operation, I had private carers for a while. DS put a keysafe on the side of the house for their use, and it has been useful on the rare occasions when I've forgotten my house key.

So interested in this thread as I have recently been considering a key safe - police approved.
My front door is by the pavement but up a step. Only options are the sides of the entrance which are plastered over brickwork or the front of house brickwork. I suppose it will have to be the front brickwork for security of fitting, but I too have wondered if a burglar would just wrench it off the wall…
More advice and views about this would be welcome!

My mother had a keysafe positioned at the side of her house on the far side of a down pipe so not visible from the roadway. We have ours in our Electricity meter box with a key for same located in our post box which is not locked.

Mine is screwed solidily onto the wall of the front porch, and I have placed a torch in a waterproof box, in the flowerbed alongside the porch, as it is absolutely no use having a key-safe if you cannoot see to type in the code after dark, when you discover that you have left your keys somewherem or lost them.

If a burglar really wants to get in, he will, but smashing a window is far easier than getting the key-safe off the wall.

My insurance covers burlarly as long as the house was locked when it occurred, so I don't particularly worry about it.

Good point about a torch tho' mobile phones have very good one. We are lucky in that if we access the meter in side passage, the security lights of neighbour go on.

Mine is in the back garden fixed to a brick wall near the conservatory door. I didn't want it to be visible from the road. My daughter knows where it is.

Have a look at Age Uk which gives some very good advice as to type of key safe and where to install.