The day I gained a rental unit was the week I learned to add a lockbox to my world. The kinds of services residents need at all hours, never convenient, require a lockbox to allow special service techs and repairmen access. The convenience cannot be understated.
Home Security Lockboxes and Systems
The second-most important consideration when you have a lockbox on any property is a security system to ensure that tradesmen or friends of friends of friends who learn your code don’t have access to your property without your knowledge.
https://ring.com/ features an inexpensive security system based on the statistical premise that most burglars ring the doorbell before attempting entry. The Ring system alerts your cell phone that someone has approached your home and rung the doorbell. The cost is nominal and the security quite effective if stats are something you appreciate.
One of my worst nightmares is in the early 1990s when I occupied a home on a corner lot in Denver at 8th Avenue and York. I kept a lockbox attached to the wrought iron security door so that my teenage children could get inside when and if ever they misplaced their house keys. Once Friday evening, my daughter had a request to babysit a couple of blocks away. The hiring mom picked her up at 6:30 and I fell asleep on the living room sofa watching a Hallmark Channel sort of movie.
Less than 4 hours later, my daughter was back at home. She buzzed the front doorbell while the mom who’d hired her for babysitting waited for her to get inside. I let her in. She headed straight for her bedroom and it was lights out for her. I continued to watch the movie that had earlier lulled me to sleep and within no time at all was asleep again.
I don’t know when the fidgeting at the front door restarted, but I am sure I didn’t hear it at first because I was so sound asleep. When I came too, there was clearly someone at the front door and it wasn’t my daughter…she had been sleeping for hours. I drew up the nerve to look out the peephole in the front door and I watched as a would-be burglar took bolt cutters to cut off the lockbox on my security door. He had unscrewed the exposed lightbulb in the overhead door light fixture to minimize his being noticed by traffic passing by.
I dialed 9-1-1.
Meanwhile, I dashed to my children’s bedrooms to shake them awake. I had them lined up at the window nearest the busiest street at our corner with the instruction to exit the window and scream from the sidewalk into traffic if the intruder managed to get the front door open.
The cops were on their way…the dispatcher confirmed to me on the phone trembling in my hand.
It was taking longer than was comfortable.
Thankfully, the kids never had to leap from the first story window to escape to the highest traffic street on our corner. Thanks too to the fact the intruder fled when the cops’ sirens approached.
The point is this: we had a lockbox on our security door and the would-be burglar did NOT know the code. He actually bypassed the code piece and was trying to beat the system with a bolt-cutter. But that wasn’t working well for him that day either. So, we remained okay (with a lot of heart trepidation) but we were okay.
Convenience is Key
The convenience of a well-placed lockbox (or two) on your property can expedite access for regular service providers like cleaning crews, and it can allow the periodic service like aeration without your having to take the time to be present.
You can change your lockbox combo frequently or every time you allow someone access.
Convenience is the monetary value to having a lockbox. Add up your time and distance and you’ll agree.
Contact Alexius Security for lockbox installation and copies of your relevant keys and you’ll thank your lucky stars for months and months.
