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| Myth: Locks only keep the honest people out.
Fact: Honesty keeps the honest people out. Cheap locks keep some of the dishonest people out, good locks keep most of the dishonest people out, and that’s usually sufficient. Myth: If they really want to get in, they will. Fact: Nobody really wants to get in particularly badly. If you throw even small stumbling blocks at their feet, burglars will fail to break in, just like they’ve failed at everything else in their miserable lives. Specifically, the following measures will vastly improve the security of your storefront business:
The first five measures, for less than $100, will shut out just about all of the burglars. The sixth measure will stop burglars who brought a reciprocating saw. If your store is of a type that is targeted by professional thieves (e.g. jewelry, electronics or liquor), then I would also recommend a high security lock. Myth: The [fill in make and model] car must have lousy locks because a consumer magazine reports that it is the most frequently stolen car in America. Fact: General Motors vehicles sold from 1965 to 1993 could be stolen by crude physical means, but no modern vehicle of any manufacturer is vulnerable to such theft. The skill and equipment required to make a key from scratch are an almost insurmountable obstacle to thieves. No manufacturer today has lousy locks on their cars. Almost all modern cars that get stolen are by pick-pockets who lift the keys out of women’s purses. This is unrelated to the make and model of car a woman drives. Statistics on car theft are not relative to their frequency in the general population, so popular cars like the Sentra are always near the top of the list while rare cars (in the U.S.) like the Jaguar are always near the bottom of the list. It is actually random. There are several ways to prevent purse/car theft:
Myth: There is a set of six keys that will open and start any [fill in make and model] car. Fact: Pre-1965 General Motors vehicles could be opened and started with a set of 64 keys, but 64 is a lot more than six (which, for some reason, is always the number quoted by people spreading this myth) and 1965 was a long time ago. Modern cars would require a set of tens of thousands of keys. Of course, popular manufacturers sell that many cars in a month, so it is not inconceivable that two cars might have the same key, but it is highly unlikely. It is not something you need to worry about. A thief would have to walk around with a wheelbarrow full of try-out keys and spend hours trying them on a car before he got the right one. Pre-1998 Ford/Mercury cars had badly designed ignitions that, when they become worn out, allow you to pull the key out while it is running. If you turn the key back far enough that the dash lights go off before removing the key, you may not realize that the ignition is not in the locked position. Left like this, the car can be restarted with any key or, for that matter, just by turning it with your hand. I charge $50 to replace the ignition, which includes matching it to your existing door key. Most mechanics will give you a separate key for the ignition, which is why you should have a locksmith do the job. Myth: There is a not-so-secret technique, recently revealed on national TV, that allows anybody to open any lock in a matter of seconds simply by "bumping" it. Fact: When television reporters have nothing better to do, they stage this sort of demonstration. Bumping is a real technique (and not a particularly good one) that has been around since the 1950s – not exactly breaking news. It works a lot better when all the tumblers have been removed from the lock before filming the demonstration. In reality, the difficulty of picking a lock by any technique depends mostly on whether your key has a saw-tooth pattern of cuts, which makes it hard to pick, or a flat pattern of cuts, which makes it easy. If yours is flat, I can rekey your locks to a more secure saw-tooth key (cost: $8 per lock cylinder, $1.50 per key) and I can install spool pins (cost $10 per lock cylinder), which also improve the pick-resistance. If you are really worried about your locks being picked, I can install high security locks that are completely pick-proof, though they are quite expensive. Myth: A gun magazine suggested that I put a deadbolt on my bedroom door to make it into a "safe room" that I can defend Alamo-style in the event of a home invasion. Fact: While I’ll be happy to install a deadbolt on your bedroom door if that’s what you really want (cost: $30 labor, $22 single-cylinder Kwikset), you should be aware that interior doors are hollow and are essentially just two stiff sheets of cardboard. Home invasion is a very serious crime (and, fortunately, a very rare one) and anybody who has taken that bold step is not going to be stopped by a cardboard door. If you want to prevent pilferage by your children, replace the passage knob with an entrance knob. I can masterkey it (cost $8, $1.50 per key) so you have one key that fits all the locks on your house and your children have a key that fits only the exterior locks. Myth: Graphite is a good lubricant for locks. Fact: No lock manufacturer in the world puts graphite in their locks at the factory, and for good reason – it plugs up the keyway. The only reason a house lock continues to function after it has been graphited is because the back of the keyway is open. The key pushes the graphite into your door cavity, where it will eventually find its way onto your carpet and leave permanent stains. Automobile ignitions are not open in the back and, if you plug them up with graphite, it could cost over a thousand dollars to replace them. I recommend Tri-Flow, though any silicon-based spray lubricant will work. WD-40 is not a lubricant. It is intended for cleaning out gunk and dissolving dried-up grease but, after the WD-40 has evaporated away, it leaves the device dry. WD stands for "water displacement." After Pearl Harbor, WD-40 was the fortieth formula tested for forcing the salt water out of the gear boxes of guns we were retrieving from sunken ships. Note: The costs quoted above do not include the $30 trip charge. Thank you for taking the time to read this page. I hope that I have provided useful information about security. If you have any further questions, you may contact me. If your question is of general interest, I will post it (anonymously) on this page. |
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