The following article is about safes and safe contents, protect valuables, prevent loss of valuables, home safety and home security: what you should store in your safes, how large a safe should be used to keep your items safely stored, protecting items from fires, burglary, water-damage, via safe usage.
My name is Pam Walker and I learned the importance of having a home safe to secure valuables the hard way. Last August my family and I went on vacation to the Bahamas for one week. Our next door neighbor, Nancy, was taking care of our house; watering the plants and getting the mail and newspaper for us. The last night we were away my husband got a call on his cell phone from Nancy – we had been robbed.
The following day we returned home to a place we barely recognized. Our furniture was turned over, pictures were on the ground, shattered glass covering the floor. I made my way to the bedroom and found my jewelry was gone. All of the beautiful brooches and necklaces given to me by my grandmother, as well as the charm bracelet I had since age eleven. Even though it is expensive to do so, televisions and other electronic devices can easily be replaced. I will never be able to replace my precious jewelry. My eight-year-old son had been a coin collector for a couple years, and the burglar happened to find his collection. His grandfather, my father, had recently given my son some of his own coins, and they were all gone. The sadness on my son's face was horrible, and it took some time for me to explain to him that grandpa would not be mad at him for losing the coins.
I would recommend a home safe to everyone. Safes bring extra security that cannot be matched by anything else, except maybe an armed guard. Burglars generally know where to look for hidden valuables. However, with a home safe the chances of being robbed of your most important and meaningful possessions are greatly reduced. Had my family and I had a safe in our house, I would still have my grandmother's jewelry, and my son would still have the coins that meant so much to him.
One of the first purchases I made following the break-in was a home safe specially designed as an anti-theft device, with the added bonus of being a fireproof safe. In my home safe, I keep any new valuables my family and I get, including things made by my children in school, in addition to any important documents and pictures. I make sure everyone in the family knows where the key to the safe is, and that everyone can open and close the safe with ease. I certainly do not wish for another such incident to happen to my family, but if one does, we will be more prepared. Since the break-in, many of my neighbors have also purchased home safes. Everyone feels the security that comes with a home safe is well worth it. We will also install an alarm system in our house, to increase the security in our home even more. Although this event was difficult for us, no one was hurt during the incident, and we were very lucky to not have lost more than we did.
