I was at a customers house today and working in his basement the subject of his safe came up.
The safe has been in his basement since he bought the house. He’s lived there for about 30 years. He does not think the safe belonged to the previous owners either.
I figure it will remain there forever because nobody is willing to lift the thing out of the basement. Lifting it out by hand isn’t a real option. The owner of the safe I assume emptied its contents and just left it behind for that reason.
Myself regardless of logic I couldn’t go 30 years without confirming it was indeed empty. It would drive me nuts, you’d find me spending my weekends with a file trying to get at it. Most likely I’d have it pulled out and have a locksmith crack it just to satisfy my curiosity.
With thirty years to work on it, I would just try a few dozen possible combinations a week, keeping track, of course. Maybe find out the pattern from the manufacturer or a locksmith. It would suck to spend 30 years trying left-right-left, when it was really right-left-right.
I’d get a locksmith to open it and tell me if it’s worth keeping. If it is, I’d have the locksmith lubricate it and reset the combination, so I could use it myself.
As a commercial real estate agent I’ve sold several old bank buildings with various closed safes. Every so often a new owner decided to pop them open. There was never anything in them.
I have a real-life similar situation. I still own a true circa 1760 colonial with my ex-wife and she still lives there. The main part of the house is remarkably original with four rooms that are almost exactly the same. They each have a center fireplace with two large closets on each side of the fireplace…except for one room. It is just a wall but there is most certainly a 6’x3’x8’ space behind it. I have confirmed that in every way possible. The bookshelf in this picture covers the area where the closet should be. There are several ways to get at that space. The best way that I can figure out is to take off part of the floor from the closet directly above it but I never wanted to create any damage to a floor let alone a wall.
It does bother me and I have had dreams about what is there even if it is nothing of note.
Even though I’d know that the safe was probably empty, I’d still become obsessed with getting it open, and would probably call a locksmith before I even moved in.
Same with the hidden closet. I could not not know. Even if I knew it was empty, I’d probably still knock out the wall just to access it for storage space.
I was a guard at a construction site, they were tearing down an old bank, and they had gotten to the safe deposit boxes. Several still had stuff- mostly papers, but some jewelry and a small amount of cash. So, there’s sometimes stuff.
After all the secret-room stories I read as a kid (you know, Nancy Drew, the Happy Hollisters, the Amityville Horror), ain’t no way I wouldn’t find out how to get into that space. You lucky bastard.
