A Weatherproof Key Safe
Over the summer, we went away for quite a while (Bali, beautiful), and entrusted one of our neighbours with the keys to the house so they could dog sit. NEVER AGAIN!
They decided to go away for a few days themselves and left their daughter to feed and walk our dogs, Billie and Ben. This in itself would not have been a problem other than the father decided to take the key we had given them, to Oxford with him. This left the dogs locked in the house in the middle of a very hot summer. The resolution for them was to get an incompetent locksmith that was probably cheating the welfare system as well, who, in the relatively simple process of drilling the universal barrel in the door, managed to damage not only the handle but the wooden door as well. When we got back a few weeks later, the idiot had installed the wrong sized barrel so at 9PM at night, we could only lock the main door to the house from the outside.
Anyway, enough of that. This Key Safe would have prevented the problem from happening. It does exactly what is says on the tin, it's a safe and you can put your key into it. In fact, you can put anything you want into it if it will fit, but for the purpose we are using it for, it's a key.
The safe itself is made out of Stainless Steel, so highly weather resistant. You access it by entering a 4 digit code into the combination wheels that are hidden from eyes and rain by a sliding cover. Enter the right combination and 'hey presto', the door falls down allowing you access to whatever is inside. A very sturdy bit of tackle. Now we dont have had to given anybody a key prior to them needing to get into the house in case of emergency, we can talk to them over the phone or internet and give them the code. Obviously this will be used as the back up now to prevent a reoccurrence of the summers debacle.
Extremely easy to fit. There are lots of these on the market that are all pretty much the same, just with a different name on them. This model was one of the cheapest (and you can tell from the pictures that they are the same, but you choose which one you want to buy. The only thing I would want in addition to what it comes with is just a little hook to actually and hang the key/s on. This particular one comes with 4 screws for screwing to wood, along with 4 wall plugs if you want to attach it to brick or concrete.
1. Drop the front down by using the switch next to the combination wheels
2. Chose you method of attaching (screws into wood in our case)
3. Fix to your chosen surface
4. Change the factory code to a more personal one (watch the video)
And that's it, all done. Your own key safe for those emergencies.