Many people keep a secret or hidden key to their home hidden so that it’s there in case they lock themselves out. My wife and I dont because we have a code to get in thru the garage.
So I’d like to ask;
Double post - see below
We have a spare key in a keylock (looks like a big combination-protected padlock, with room for a key to be locked within it), which is not exactly hidden. I used it a couple of months ago. I went for a run, not realizing my wife would be going out before I returned home.
Whether I would have been more careful if we didn’t have one, I don’t know.
At work, I keep a spare set of door keys in a “hidden” magnetic key box. There is a keypad to shut off the alarm once you are through the door so I’m not that careful with the key.
Back when car keys were simple, my first improvement to a new car was taping a spare key to the inside of a hubcap. Saved my ass several times.
At home we do not have keys to our doors. We are the last property on a dead end private gravel road. Even with GPS, UPS can barely find us. Locking the house would require me to replace 5 lock sets.
I have a key in a small pill bottle, secreted in the back garden. It’s at least ten years since I had to use it. The last time I needed a key was about two years ago, but I just knocked on my neighbours’ door, since I’ve given them spare keys too.
We keep our spare keys distributed among our nearby friends and relatives.
Ours is hanging on the dog’s collar, jumbled up with his rabies, registration and name tags. I’d like to see somebody try to take it off of him. He’s bitey.
I keep one in my truck and one in my garage. The garage is separate from the house.
I’ve never needed either one.
We also have one of these license plate key hiders on one of the cars.
This. And I could always just pick the lock if necessary.
The only time we might lock the house if is when we are on vacation for a few weeks. Even then we might not.
Our neighbors do have a spare key to the house, and if we are on vaca, they might accidently lock it. I do have a spare key in my plow truck which sits in the drive unlocked.
Nope, no spare keys. Flying on the ragged edge of disaster, I am…
I had an arrangement with a trusted neighbor several doors away. We kept each other’s key under our doormat. I knew where to find one for my door, but a burglar who found the key would have no way to guess whose door it fit.
When I was a kid, we had a big dog named Bear. He wasn’t bitey, but a burglar wouldn’t know that. If it was necessary to leave the house unattended but accessible to authorized people, Mom would just leave the back door unlocked with Bear out in the yard. The code for this was “Ursa Major has the key”.
Back door has an electronic keypad deadbolt.
Both garage doors have a keypad. Plus…
Yes, one with a close friend, a neighbor has one and I’ve secreted a third in the backyard. Both backyard gates have a combo lock on them so we should be the only ones gaining entrance.
About a month back. Our house doors are the kind where even when they’re locked from the outside the inside handle will still turn and the lock open. It makes it easier to come and go but you do run the risk of locking yourself out.
Yes, at the old house I stored one in a magnetic case secured to the bottom of the BBQ grill. We never used it and I forgot it was there when I pulled the old, worn out grill out to the curb for trash / free to a good home. Sure enough someone took it, then I remembered the key. No matter though, turns out it was an elderly couple around the corner that snagged it. I didn’t even go retrieve it.
Next door neighbor has one and my best friend another. If there is no power failure, we can in through the garage and the code is a 4 digit number that is part of an important mathematical constant (not 3142). In 42 years, I have never needed it.
We don’t. We figure anyplace convenient enough to stash one is obvious enough to someone looking to find a way in (“nobody will ever think to look under this rock next to the front door- brilliant!”)
We always enter and leave the house through the garage, and our cars have the programmable door buttons in the overhead console. One of the garage doors has a keypad, which only gets used maybe once a year when my MiL has to come by while we’re on vacation.
We have a keypad for garage door and can always enter that way if necessary.
Plus, can everyone also include their alarm codes and addresses?
Thanks!