apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Just hang your key on that little nail in the middle of the door where you hang your Christmas wreath and save the burglars the trouble of looking under the potted plant or popping open this little keypad. It doesn't look like it could stand up to a heavy duty screwdriver much less a hammer or crow bar.

The best solution, like you said, is to give the neighbor a key. If so many people need access, just get an electronic keypad lock for the door itself.

I agree with the points above. Except that relying on one's neighbor to be at home and awake when your spare key is needed can be impractical too.

When my parents were selling their house a couple years ago, the realtors put a similiar key lock box on the door. It made it easy for other realtors to show the house to their clients.

I remember when my neighbor locked himself out of his condo. He went to the neighbor who had his spare key. She had not yet put in her hearing aid for the day. He did not actually get back into his house for two hours. He banged on her door like crazy!

This is cute and shiny and all, but someone would just walk off with that, open it eventually, and come back to finish the job. I think even one of those fake rocks is probably better than this. But, very shiny.

These are actually great. They are heavy and tougher than you think. We found one on the deck of a place we rented and did not have the code. So we thought we would break into it -- no luck with hamer, chisel and a lot of muscle. We changed the locks instead.

We have since moved and purchased one for ourselves -- no need to worry about getting locked out.

they have one of these in my building for the sabbath key!

Hey Jaie - They are screwed onto something...and the screws are located inside the lock box. This is MUCH better than a fake rock.

It's a great idea. You don't have to put it on YOUR building. You hide it somewhere in the neighborhood about a block away.

OR If you're in manhattan make friends with the local bartender. Our keys are generally accessible from noon to 4am! Thats where my keys are...put an identifiable keychain on them and visitorss can get a drink and the keys if they arrive during a workday :-)

I have had one of these for many years at my vacation home, and it is out of view, but also, extremely difficult to get into.

I can't be fore sure if this is the same version, but mine is cast metal, with a pretty heavy duty lock mechanism. It would be easier just to break down the door then to open this thing.

In 7 years I've had no 'stolen keys'.

When I lived with roommates we had one of these tucked near our front door (hidden) and it was great. My roommate constantly forgot her key so this was nice to have instead of having to rush home to open the door. Also, I used to use the stashed key when I would go for a run, instead of carrying my house keys. It's very sturdy and strong and I think would be very difficult to break into.

Three number open this lock. That means there are only 1000 possible combinations. I use one of these at work, so I know how quickly one can try a combination.

This means a patient thief could probably open this lock in than less that one hour.

As a realtor, we use these for empty houses that we're showing, except they loop and lock around the doorknob and look much more secure and sturdy than this one. You punch in the code, and get to the key, but nobody except the person who put the box on the door can get it back off (and walk away with it).
I don't know offhand where to buy one, but I'm sure there are plenty of places that advertise them for realtors.

The US federal government and the US military frequently use a combination door lock to secure doors in classified areas, and from what I can tell they are the Kaba Ilco 1000 series models.

During Desert Shield under President George Bush Sr, I was working in the Pentagon in the National Military Command Center (one of the most secure facilities within the Pentagon), providing technical support to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, J-4 Logistics Directorate, in the Logistics Readiness Center. During the first week, we went to a shift schedule, so we had multiple teams of people working, and Team Chiefs and Executive Officers for each shift. For this shift, we had a new guy who was acting Team Chief and he managed to leave his briefing slides in his office, and closed the door behind him. Only he didn't remember the combination and he was about to go brief Chairman Colin Powell. He had ten minutes to his briefing and I had five minutes to break into his office.

Three numbers, then twist the handle. You can do it about as fast as you can say "Tick-Tick-Tick-Turn". One combination every couple of seconds. I had the door open in way less than five minutes, and after I was done I told the combination to the Executive Officer on duty as well as the Team Chief on duty, and then told them that they probably wanted to change the combination now that I knew it.

Even if the box itself is strong, if there are a small number of possible combinations to get the thing open, then it's not really very secure. I can do it in just a few minutes.