Help me secure my storage unit
September 25, 2011 12:40 AM Subscribe
Securing my insecure storage unit...
I have a chain-link fenced storage unit in a shared garage beneath my condo complex. Six months ago, my car was broken into and my storage unit was snipped apart to make enough room to burrow into it and find absolutely nothing of value, and take nothing. (There's a TV box, an old drum set, some mementos, and not a lot else. Really, hardly anything at all.)
Just last night, I noticed it was in a bit of a state of disarray. The hole had been snipped wider! Fantastic.
What can I do to secure this against bolt cutters/wire cutters when/if I get the chain link replaced?
The unit is the width of about two parking spaces. It has a chain link "roof". It has units on either side of it. It has a person-width chain link door with a keyed deadbolt.
My primary concern is securing it against people cutting the fucking chain link. Most gauge chain link, so goes my understanding, is not going to resist a bolt cutter. So what's the next step?
The unit is underground, and away from a power source. No wireless signal can reach my actual house, so security measures like that are out. We have signs claiming we have security cameras, but no actual cameras. (I'm on the condo board.)
Could I put a wrought iron super-structure inside the fencing and secure it against the piping? What would be a most cost-effective solution?
This is one of those unsettling, incredibly obnoxious things. None of the other units were broken into, so I'm not sure if mine just looked more attractive or what. (Others have chained their door shut, instead of relying on just the deadbolt, but this wouldn't help against people trimming around the chain and cutting into the unit itself, of course.)
It looks like a mess with basically nothing worth stealing if you ask me, so I'm really not sure what their deal was, or why they felt the need to cut a BIGGER hole.
Any ideas on ways to enforce the fence?
I have a chain-link fenced storage unit in a shared garage beneath my condo complex. Six months ago, my car was broken into and my storage unit was snipped apart to make enough room to burrow into it and find absolutely nothing of value, and take nothing. (There's a TV box, an old drum set, some mementos, and not a lot else. Really, hardly anything at all.)
Just last night, I noticed it was in a bit of a state of disarray. The hole had been snipped wider! Fantastic.
What can I do to secure this against bolt cutters/wire cutters when/if I get the chain link replaced?
The unit is the width of about two parking spaces. It has a chain link "roof". It has units on either side of it. It has a person-width chain link door with a keyed deadbolt.
My primary concern is securing it against people cutting the fucking chain link. Most gauge chain link, so goes my understanding, is not going to resist a bolt cutter. So what's the next step?
The unit is underground, and away from a power source. No wireless signal can reach my actual house, so security measures like that are out. We have signs claiming we have security cameras, but no actual cameras. (I'm on the condo board.)
Could I put a wrought iron super-structure inside the fencing and secure it against the piping? What would be a most cost-effective solution?
This is one of those unsettling, incredibly obnoxious things. None of the other units were broken into, so I'm not sure if mine just looked more attractive or what. (Others have chained their door shut, instead of relying on just the deadbolt, but this wouldn't help against people trimming around the chain and cutting into the unit itself, of course.)
It looks like a mess with basically nothing worth stealing if you ask me, so I'm really not sure what their deal was, or why they felt the need to cut a BIGGER hole.
Any ideas on ways to enforce the fence?
Any way a small shipping container would fit in the space? The chain link really isn't going to stop anyone.
posted by Marky at 5:23 AM on September 25, 2011
posted by Marky at 5:23 AM on September 25, 2011
Corrugated tin roofing or siding can be cut to size and installed by bolting to the corner posts.
posted by Gungho at 5:58 AM on September 25, 2011
posted by Gungho at 5:58 AM on September 25, 2011
If you're willing to invest in it a little, I'd suggest just putting anything of value in a worksite box and chaining that down. Otherwise, I think I'd just resign myself to not keeping anything of value in there.
posted by jferg at 7:12 AM on September 25, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by jferg at 7:12 AM on September 25, 2011 [1 favorite]
Damn, screwed up the first link. That should have been "worksite".
posted by jferg at 7:15 AM on September 25, 2011
posted by jferg at 7:15 AM on September 25, 2011
I live in Richmond, CA, in one of the bad parts of town (the Iron Triangle). In fact, there was a violent brawl outside my window last night that kept me up for hours. Theft is a daily problem. In the warehouse that I live in, there is a layered approach to security. Example: the windows have iron bars to keep people out. Inside that is a heavy metal mesh to keep rocks from breaking the glass. On the glass is privacy film to keep people from seeing inside. Pretty effective.
What I've learned here is that you need to make your stuff appear harder to steal than other people's stuff. So, for example, I use The Club in my truck as well as locking the doors and keeping any electronics hidden. Though The Club is totally ineffective as a lock (just cut the steering wheel with a hacksaw), it makes my truck one degree harder to steal than the other trucks in the area. As an invisible theft deterrent I have wired in a fuel pump kill switch.
Likewise with locks. I have a 48" bolt cutter, and it has shown me that locks are only useful for honest people. I cut two locks like this not long ago, and it made the "high security" claim laughable. But I also tried cutting this lock, which gave me little purchase and took almost half an hour of screwing around to break.
The idea of double-bagging your stuff in lockers or lockable cabinets is a good one. It is likely one degree harder than the nearby spaces. Another idea would be to simply line it with plywood. A bolt cutter is useless against plywood. you can attach the plywood to the poles and with hundreds of clips to the chain link. This approach (or corrugated metal, etc mentioned above) echoes what the bicycling community has learned - opportunistic thieves usually have only one theft-tool with them. So if your break in requires, say, a bolt-cutter AND a hand-saw, it's unlikely to happen.
posted by fake at 7:28 AM on September 25, 2011 [10 favorites]
What I've learned here is that you need to make your stuff appear harder to steal than other people's stuff. So, for example, I use The Club in my truck as well as locking the doors and keeping any electronics hidden. Though The Club is totally ineffective as a lock (just cut the steering wheel with a hacksaw), it makes my truck one degree harder to steal than the other trucks in the area. As an invisible theft deterrent I have wired in a fuel pump kill switch.
Likewise with locks. I have a 48" bolt cutter, and it has shown me that locks are only useful for honest people. I cut two locks like this not long ago, and it made the "high security" claim laughable. But I also tried cutting this lock, which gave me little purchase and took almost half an hour of screwing around to break.
The idea of double-bagging your stuff in lockers or lockable cabinets is a good one. It is likely one degree harder than the nearby spaces. Another idea would be to simply line it with plywood. A bolt cutter is useless against plywood. you can attach the plywood to the poles and with hundreds of clips to the chain link. This approach (or corrugated metal, etc mentioned above) echoes what the bicycling community has learned - opportunistic thieves usually have only one theft-tool with them. So if your break in requires, say, a bolt-cutter AND a hand-saw, it's unlikely to happen.
posted by fake at 7:28 AM on September 25, 2011 [10 favorites]
Well, here's the thing about security containers: they're not a prevention measure, they're a delay measure. Even a safe is rated for the amount of time a dedicated person would have to spend on it.
So the purpose of the chain link is to make someone spend some time cutting a hole. That time is the time where someone would see them doing it and... stop them, or get their identity, or call the cops or something.
It sounds to me like this chain link is located in a place where the bad guys get too much time alone, so it's not an adequate security measure. So you can A. make the chain link component more difficult by upgrading to, wrought iron? or B. Put your stuff in locked pelican cases or something inside the fence (make sure they're big enough to not just casually carry away by the bad guy)
or C: complain to the f-ing condo complex HOA that there needs to be security capable of checking on the area at least once every (time it takes to get to your stuff) or video surveillance or something. You are now in a known-threat situation, it's not hypothetical.
or D: consider that not a secure area at all, just storage for boxes and non-valuables like you already do.
posted by ctmf at 7:29 AM on September 25, 2011
So the purpose of the chain link is to make someone spend some time cutting a hole. That time is the time where someone would see them doing it and... stop them, or get their identity, or call the cops or something.
It sounds to me like this chain link is located in a place where the bad guys get too much time alone, so it's not an adequate security measure. So you can A. make the chain link component more difficult by upgrading to, wrought iron? or B. Put your stuff in locked pelican cases or something inside the fence (make sure they're big enough to not just casually carry away by the bad guy)
or C: complain to the f-ing condo complex HOA that there needs to be security capable of checking on the area at least once every (time it takes to get to your stuff) or video surveillance or something. You are now in a known-threat situation, it's not hypothetical.
or D: consider that not a secure area at all, just storage for boxes and non-valuables like you already do.
posted by ctmf at 7:29 AM on September 25, 2011
Seconding the corrugated tin - install it on the inside of the chain link fencing. Don't just bolt into the corners since that will be easy enough conquer. Your goal is to make the time it takes to break into the area as lengthy as possible.
Add in a line of hole punches (use a hammer & Phillips screwdriver to make the holes) and use lots of cable ties. Use smaller pieces of corrugated on the outside of the cage to cover the corners and spot weld them to the interior corrugated.
A very determined person could still break in but they'd have to take a lot of time and may make enough noise so someone notices.
Add a couple of jingle bells (in various sizes) and hang them from the inside corrugated so they'll sound when anyone touches it.
Get a motion activated battery powered safety light like this one. The light coming on may scare away someone - or alert people near by that there's someone in that area.
Or remove all the items from the storeroom - then there's nothing to "explore".
posted by jaimystery at 7:30 AM on September 25, 2011 [1 favorite]
Add in a line of hole punches (use a hammer & Phillips screwdriver to make the holes) and use lots of cable ties. Use smaller pieces of corrugated on the outside of the cage to cover the corners and spot weld them to the interior corrugated.
A very determined person could still break in but they'd have to take a lot of time and may make enough noise so someone notices.
Add a couple of jingle bells (in various sizes) and hang them from the inside corrugated so they'll sound when anyone touches it.
Get a motion activated battery powered safety light like this one. The light coming on may scare away someone - or alert people near by that there's someone in that area.
Or remove all the items from the storeroom - then there's nothing to "explore".
posted by jaimystery at 7:30 AM on September 25, 2011 [1 favorite]
In regards to padlocks, another quick and dirty measure to stop/slow down people with bolt cutters it to buy large nuts (or washers, I guess too) and slide them onto the shank of the lock in such a manner that you can't get a bolt cutter in between them to cut the shank.
Other options are to go to the home center and buy some fence poles and add them to the existing fence (from the inside) so that someone cutting the chain-link would be unable to climb through. Or weld some rebar on, if you can do that.
If it was me, I would avoid putting anything on that hides the inside of the storage, unless other people also have that installed. If I was a thief, I would be drawn to a unit that stood out like that. It would make me more willing to spend some time trying to get in because I'd think there was something good in there.
posted by gjc at 9:29 AM on September 25, 2011
Other options are to go to the home center and buy some fence poles and add them to the existing fence (from the inside) so that someone cutting the chain-link would be unable to climb through. Or weld some rebar on, if you can do that.
If it was me, I would avoid putting anything on that hides the inside of the storage, unless other people also have that installed. If I was a thief, I would be drawn to a unit that stood out like that. It would make me more willing to spend some time trying to get in because I'd think there was something good in there.
posted by gjc at 9:29 AM on September 25, 2011
I own an abandoned-looking home in West Oakland (not as crime ridden as the Iron Triangle but close).
I think part of the problem is that you didn't fix it right away. What I've learned from the long war of attrition I've been fighting over here is that maybe only one-tenth of your average vagrants are determined, equipped, and athletic enough to break into something or even jump a fence. But once there's a big hole in your fence, like half will wander in and look around. So any barrier helps.
And you should correct breaches to it immediately before anyone gets habituated to going in there, and so they know you're keeping a close eye on the place and thus might catch them completely. Do you think maybe they've been sleeping in there and finally got tired of their small door? I'd check it three times a day for awhile and fix or clean anything (cigarette butts, candy wrappers) immediately. A quick two part story: after one break-in, I locked that door up tight and the next day found attempts at breaking the next-weakest door. I put about thirty screws in that one (versus the usual six). I came the next day and found a tear in the plywood between two screws on a back window. I put a two-by four across that window and reinforced it with metal brackets on each end to make it even harder to rip off. And they quit and went away. The break-in attempts stopped and had stayed stopped even once I went back to the six-screw system.
But then someone ripped off one of the metal fence bars. And I made the mistake of leaving that unfixed for two whole weeks. And now (even now that I've fixed it again), I'm getting calls from neighbors about drug deals happening in the yard and homeless-looking people jumping the fence, and I'm finding beer cans etc. So now I have to again demonstrate hyper-vigilance to communicate that it is seriously NOT okay to come in this yard. (In lieu of a better idea I've been on-site almost nonstop this weekend. In fact, I'm here sitting on a milk crate as I type. And I hadn't exactly planned on spending 9-11:30 PM last night doing random construction site cleanup but such is life.) [end of long story]
What kind of barrier to install is as much about your tools and budget and preferences as anything else. The wrought iron super structure is a good idea. I have no budget so I'd use what I could get cheap. I have a lot of scrap plywood right now, so I'd probably half-ass it by putting that inside the chain-link, drilling holes on the edges and wiring or bolting it to the posts as best I could. Someone could probably kick through the plywood if they tried but since it's free to me, I'd start there and see how long that held. If not, I'd move up to the welding-rebar suggestion listed above. Anything you can do immediately (just patching the hole?) is better than nothing. You could also potentially install the equivalent of a bike rack inside the storage unit by drilling some bolts into the concrete slab, then lock everything to that.
I'd probably never store anything super resale-friendly in there, like a bike or a generator. Even if it's out of sight, people have a way of knowing.
posted by slidell at 11:57 AM on September 25, 2011 [1 favorite]
I think part of the problem is that you didn't fix it right away. What I've learned from the long war of attrition I've been fighting over here is that maybe only one-tenth of your average vagrants are determined, equipped, and athletic enough to break into something or even jump a fence. But once there's a big hole in your fence, like half will wander in and look around. So any barrier helps.
And you should correct breaches to it immediately before anyone gets habituated to going in there, and so they know you're keeping a close eye on the place and thus might catch them completely. Do you think maybe they've been sleeping in there and finally got tired of their small door? I'd check it three times a day for awhile and fix or clean anything (cigarette butts, candy wrappers) immediately. A quick two part story: after one break-in, I locked that door up tight and the next day found attempts at breaking the next-weakest door. I put about thirty screws in that one (versus the usual six). I came the next day and found a tear in the plywood between two screws on a back window. I put a two-by four across that window and reinforced it with metal brackets on each end to make it even harder to rip off. And they quit and went away. The break-in attempts stopped and had stayed stopped even once I went back to the six-screw system.
But then someone ripped off one of the metal fence bars. And I made the mistake of leaving that unfixed for two whole weeks. And now (even now that I've fixed it again), I'm getting calls from neighbors about drug deals happening in the yard and homeless-looking people jumping the fence, and I'm finding beer cans etc. So now I have to again demonstrate hyper-vigilance to communicate that it is seriously NOT okay to come in this yard. (In lieu of a better idea I've been on-site almost nonstop this weekend. In fact, I'm here sitting on a milk crate as I type. And I hadn't exactly planned on spending 9-11:30 PM last night doing random construction site cleanup but such is life.) [end of long story]
What kind of barrier to install is as much about your tools and budget and preferences as anything else. The wrought iron super structure is a good idea. I have no budget so I'd use what I could get cheap. I have a lot of scrap plywood right now, so I'd probably half-ass it by putting that inside the chain-link, drilling holes on the edges and wiring or bolting it to the posts as best I could. Someone could probably kick through the plywood if they tried but since it's free to me, I'd start there and see how long that held. If not, I'd move up to the welding-rebar suggestion listed above. Anything you can do immediately (just patching the hole?) is better than nothing. You could also potentially install the equivalent of a bike rack inside the storage unit by drilling some bolts into the concrete slab, then lock everything to that.
I'd probably never store anything super resale-friendly in there, like a bike or a generator. Even if it's out of sight, people have a way of knowing.
posted by slidell at 11:57 AM on September 25, 2011 [1 favorite]
I'd find a LARGE, and HEAVY metal container and bolt that to the floor from the inside, thereby creating a "storage unit inside a storage unit". And to be on the safe side you'd want something that they can't just pickup and walk away with, something that's cumbersome and difficult to move. Or you could add weights (concrete blocks maybe) to the base to make it feel as though its secured to the ground. As an added measure you could get one of those alarms that go off when they detect movement (I'm talking about the ones marketed as devices to secure valuable items such as laptops) and put that inside the box, so even if they somehow manage to break the box free from the ground, the alarm will go off and draw attention.
Add MULTIPLE lines of defense, some OBVIOUS, some STEALTH, so that they'll be caught off guard if they try anything.
And as others have mentioned, it's about time - the longer it takes for someone to break in the less successful they'll be.
posted by theswedishchef at 6:26 AM on September 27, 2011
Add MULTIPLE lines of defense, some OBVIOUS, some STEALTH, so that they'll be caught off guard if they try anything.
And as others have mentioned, it's about time - the longer it takes for someone to break in the less successful they'll be.
posted by theswedishchef at 6:26 AM on September 27, 2011
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posted by techrep at 2:10 AM on September 25, 2011