Burglars who want to rob a house or flat in a few minutes direct their first steps to places where we usually hide money and valuables. They quickly and efficiently check, for example, drawers and compartments near the front door, because keys, wallet and cash are often hidden there. So if you want to protect yourself against theft and losses, you should protect your valuables better and hide them well, preferably in a solid, burglar-proof safe. We suggest how to effectively hide a safe at home.
Where to install a safe at home?
Police statistics show that every year in Poland there are tens of thousands of burglaries[1]. The harvest time for thieves is winter and summer, but not only. Before a burglary, criminals can observe the property for a long time to enter it unnoticed in the absence of household members and make a quick theft. However, you can guard against this – equip yourself with a safe and think carefully about where to install it in the house, so that it is invisible to guests and bystanders. If we want to disguise the safe deposit box very well, we will choose an unusual place.
A safe – how do I hide it?
Walls and floors are good places to hide a safe. In special recesses hidden in the construction of the building, a safe is mounted, which is permanently attached to the floor. This makes it easy to conceal the container, for example under a carpet, a bed or, in the case of walls, behind a wardrobe. An even better idea might be to locate a niche for a wall safe, e.g. in a pantry behind the cupboards in which you place your foodstuffs. This will certainly not be the first place a thief will target.
Double drawer – the way to a furniture safe
It's also a good idea to hide a popular furniture safe in a deep double-bottomed drawer. This type of drawer can be installed, for example, in a desk in a study, but also in less typical places, for example in a bathroom cabinet. A thief who only has a few minutes to complete his task will certainly not waste time searching all the drawers in the house and will concentrate on those where valuables are most often stored.
This may interest you:
5 questions you need to know the answers to before buying a safe
Safe at home – where to hide it and what to look for when buying
Where to place the safe in the house, we can also wonder when we want to choose a free-standing safe. To make it unobtrusive (e.g. in the study), it is worth considering hiding it in the attic in a specially prepared container, which may resemble a toy chest. It is then enough to place a few objects, toys or a blanket under the lid so that a burglar will not realise that there is a safe with valuable valuables underneath. If we want to have a safe at hand in our everyday work, in order to deposit important documents in it, the solution to the dilemma: a built-in safe or a free-standing safe, seems to be obvious, with the indication of the latter – then we should choose a heavy, class II office safe, preferably from class II upwards (according to the PN-EN 1143-1 standard).
See also: Secure presentation of collections
How to install the safe
It's also important to remember that it's not just where the safe is hidden, but also how it's installed. A lightweight safe that can easily be lifted and carried out does not provide good security. Therefore, it is recommended that burglary safes be permanently mounted in furniture or in the floor with special screws, which effectively prevents them from being quickly removed and attempted to be opened after a burglary in a safe place for a criminal.
How to protect yourself against a robbery
In situations where a robbery occurs while the household members are at home and the user of the safe is faced with the necessity of opening it (so-called extortion under Article 282 of the Penal Code), you should think about a safe equipped with the so-called "silent alarm" function. Opening the safe and allowing theft to take place at the same time will alert the relevant services, which will make it possible to catch the attackers immediately after the robbery. There are also special solutions – safes with a double bottom, such as the ghost-safe offered by Hartmann Tresore. A simpler version of the same solution is to have two or more safes. Thieves usually do not have much time to thoroughly sweep through a robbed property.
[1] http://www.statystyka.policja.pl/st/przestepstwa-ogolem/przestepstwa-kryminalne/7-wybranych-kategorii-p/kradziez-z-wlamaniem/121941,Kradziez-z-wlamaniem.html
