Shed safety counts – lock it or lose it!

Sheds contain more valuables than many other rooms in the house. When you consider the value of the big items such as the lawn mower, water blaster, wiper sniper, the hedger and then look at all the smaller items such as the spades, tools, secateurs to name a few, there are many items that we keep in out sheds and they are often of high value.

So you would think we would lock them up as tight as we lock up our houses, but how secure really is your shed?

Looking at the shed in the backyard, it is right at the back of the section, mostly out of sight; the door is shut, but not locked.

This is poor shed safety.

When you think of the value of what is inside and how much it would cost to replace, it makes you shiver, so why haven’t many people looked at better shed safety? It’s probably because when we think of items people steal, we think, T.V’s, computers, laptops etc but we don’t often consider the things in our shed to be items that someone would want to steal, or would they?

When you look into the statistics, there is a rising trend in theft from our sheds, and it makes sense why.  Sheds are usually away from the house, so you won’t disturb the owners, and they are often not secure or locked, so are easily accessible. The fact is that many sheds, particularly the lower cost garden sheds are not usually designed to prevent burglary; they are traditionally built to withstand the elements, making them a prime target for thieves.

There is a rising trend in the use of outdoor storage such as a shed, and given the increasing trend in theft from places like this it is worth looking at some shed safety, and as the saying goes “lock it or lose it”, so if you can’t afford to lose it, then you better look at some way to lock it. As a minimum, fitting a padlock to prevent opportunist could save a lot of heartache, but this is basic shed safety and there are many other better alternatives out there to prevent burglary of the high value items in your shed, and it is worthwhile looking into it.