From a safety & security standpoint, this was a pretty quiet but yet an interesting week. My favorite comment this week was – I thought keys were just keys… (Sorry, but we can’t rekey your new Kwikset locks to use your old Schlage key) Then yesterday while I was playing catch up, here comes an interesting Tweet from Kyle Thill of Toyota-Lift of Minnesota where a group stole a 50’ long by 20’ wide steel bridge (CNN Article). While this is pretty rare, the discussion that developed from it wasn’t which involved cupboards & oneprojcloser where we discussed the issue of stolen AC units (among other things) which brings us to this week’s article / thought.

Locks, fences, gates, etc… are truly just meant to help keep the honest people, honest. As Kyle had never heard about fences or cages that many in our area, and other areas have had to put we explained the issue – when copper prices spiked, people started steeling the AC units outside of churches primarily for their copper. In other area’s it was business complexes / new housing developments, but when you have more churches than banks & they are relatively unoccupied, well…

Once the initial spate hit, many of those that were hit (& others surrounding them) installed fences with locks. While this helped stop it somewhat, the “smarter ones” simply brought a pair of bolt cutters which resulted in many churches installing full blown steel cages, hard to reach locks, security cameras, and lights. For the most part this has helped deter most thieves (even though I have heard of 1or 2 still getting hit), and the thieves simply moved onto easier targets – business, homes, etc…

Does this mean that everyone needs to install a cage or… In short the answer is no, yes, and maybe not now, but maybe later if conditions warrant it. No matter what there are a few common sense things that one should keep in mind – the first thing is to remember that it you want to help keep honest people honest, and for those that are not so honest – don’t look like an easy target. If you have overgrown bushes or hedges, trim them down – from an HVAC performance standpoint, you don’t want them or solid fences / panels surrounding your units anyways. Lighting is a great deterrent as most people like this don’t like being exposed to the world as they do their “work.” Oh and of course, locks only keep honest people honest, if you use them.

As a quick FYI, after starting this article, I found out that this happens to be National Crime Prevention Month. For more information on this and other tips you can find more information at the NCPC site.