Safe Room

You are home late at night watching TV with the kids.  Out of the corner of your eye you see something move in the back yard and know it’s a person that shouldn’t be there.  You grab your kids and head for your bedroom, which you turned into a safe room.  You run in, dead bolt the door, and use the phone by the nightstand to call 911.  The operator is polite, but busy.  She tells you the police are on the way and it will be a couple minutes.  You go to your gun safe and get your shotgun or rifle wile you wait.  Minutes creep by that seem like hours.  Then you hear the sound you are dreading the most, a window breaking and someone entering your home.  You tell the operator what you hear and that you are armed but behind a solid locked door.  You wait for what seems like another hour, but is only minutes.  The operator says the police have arrived and ask if you know where the burglar is.  You say in the house and the police surround the house and call the burglar out.  The burglar is arrested and no one is hurt, just a little scarred.

That is how we want things to end.  If you have a safe room set up in your house, this is an option, if you don’t, then things could go very badly for you.

Having a safe room gives you two very important but simple things; time, and options.  In the above situation, the operator will tell you to lock yourself in a bedroom or bathroom and wait for the police.  Are you sure the door you have will keep you safe?  Once the police arrive, if you are securely locked in your room they can wait the burglar out and no one has to risk themselves.  If you are locked in a bathroom, then the police will have to come in to save you.  That creates all sorts of bad things for you and the police officer.

A safe room is simple to construct and stock.   Here are a couple things to buy and stock in your safe room,

• A solid core door (the type found on the outside of your house),
• A good dead bolt,
• A good door lock (not the same key, and store the keys separate from each other),
• An old cell phone plugged into the wall (all cell phones can call 911 even if they do not have service, it’s one of the taxes on your phone bill every month),
• A means of protection (the door and the fact that you have called the police should deter most criminals, but that ones that stay and get through your solid door have no other intent but to harm you and your family, protect them.  My protection is a 12 Gauge shotgun in my safe room).

The last time I set up a safe room it cost me less then $100 for the door and locks from home depot, and a couple hours work to install.

If you ever need a safe room, it will be worth more money then you can ever imagine.

Stay Safe,

Ben