Tools, Sheds and Thieves

Have you ever noticed someone looking especially suspicious around your garden or backyard? Perhaps, you’ve seen someone lingering with intent before catching your eye and walking away. Beware of the garden shed thieves!

Most burglars are intelligent and tend not to carry bags of housebreaking tools around with them. They know that if they are spotted walking around with such equipment that they will probably be reported, caught and questioned quite quickly. They might carry a screwdriver or a small crowbar in a rucksack to look much less suspicious, and use them to break open a weak lock before throwing them away before the police arrive. In modern times, thieves use a much more practical approach. Targeting those of you who leave your tools in the garden and using your own tools to pinch valuable goods from your garden sheds. If caught, they’ll just drop them and run for the hills!

Many of you who store valuables and expensive pieces of equipment in your sheds will be shocked to discover how easy shed locks are to break into. Mass-manufactured, prefabricated sheds sold through DIY chains and garden centres tend to have locks which could just as easy be blown open by a large gust of wind. These locks can be opened with a standard cut key that opens every shed in the product range. These sheds are generally quite cheap because manufacturers look to cut costs on the extra features and keep them basic. An opportunist thief with a regular screwdriver could quite easily prize open one of these locks in a matter of seconds, gaining immediate access to your valuable goods that could then be used to gain access to your house.

Making your shed secure is an important thing to do in the modern era. For most of us honest people, opening a lock with anything but a key is unthinkable. However, there are a select few dishonest people who would use anything from a rusty nail to a butter knife to open weak locks. Every year, all over the country, there are hundreds of robberies reported where a person has broken into a house using a garden spade, pitch form or some form of large gardening utensil. All sorts of tools can be used and then discarded straight away, and trust us when we say, a thief won’t care about the mess they make in the process and the damages they cause. Any power tools you have in your shed can be easily loaded into a standby vehicle, which could then be sold through an innocent event like a boot sale or garden sale, ironically. A young man carrying tools and going back and forth to a stationary vehicle could very easily be mistaken for a handyman doing work for a neighbour, and would probably be ignored, with no suspicions raised.

If you have a shed that was purchased with a fitted lock, you can put your money on the fact this lock will be virtually useless, and with that being said, you shouldn’t rely on such a lock to protect your valuable tools, expensive weightlifting gear, bicycles and/or other kinds of shed based items. Our advice to you as a shed owner wanting to protect your stuff in the best way possible… use an additional padlock on a strong hasp which has been staple bolted through from the inside. This is at the very least! If your shed looks more secure than others, with strong bolts and large padlocks, an opportunist thief is far more likely to choose an easier option elsewhere!

If you would like more advice on securing your sheds or would like help choose strong padlocks and fitting them correctly, please be sure to get in touch. Keyhole Kate’s have the answer to every lock related problem and can start by protecting your shed today!

Thanks for reading! We hope you choose a reliable locksmith, like ourselves, to ensure the safety of your home, your shed and everything in them!