What everyone else has said with an addendum -- All three of my safes are bolted to the floor AND the wall behind and placed in a corner of the room...Said placement and rear or side wall bolts is to prevent tipping it over by rocking it...It will strip the safe right of the floor bolts...Make sure that the safe is real heavy, 800 lbs bolted is nice 1,000 lbs is better and 1,200 lbs is best of all...It is quite easy, but not normally needed, to reinforce the floor...
We dug up our basement floor, put down steel plates and pins/stakes sticking up through the fresh poured a new cement floor and them mounted the safes there...they have to jackhammer the floor to move them and they won't tip over but they can be easily moved just by unbolting the pins from inside the safe and lifting off
Nothing is theft proof just theft resistant, designed to delay the thief to the point where it isn't worth it for them to continue especially with a siren blaring and hopefully the police are on the way...Alarms are deterrents prior to break in and a hurry up factor after entry…
Also, get some programmable timers to turn lights/appliances on and off…buddy had one in a counter plug next to the fridge and had a light come on for around a minute, in a darkened kitchen, simulating someone was raiding the fridge and with the multi event timer it happened at all different hours…Amazing the lived in feeling the exterior portrays when suddenly a TV turns off but more so on! He also timed it, via the computer and RC/RF plugs, to make believe that someone was leaving the kitchen, turns off that light, then the dining room light, then the hall light, then the bedside light turns on and the overhead ones out…Deterrents! Most won’t B&E a place with people inside – Home Invasion is another matter, altogether–power/dominance over swag/loot same as rape is more about control then just sex…
Inside job, possible but unlikely...Did anyone else know you were on vacation/away for a long period of time...Did you by any chance tell your barber; wife's manicurist; paper route; mail carrier; buy a new camera or film; how about some off season clothes; at work did you mention to a client that you'll be away?...You could have been overheard at any one of them and they could have just blabbed, innocently, to someone, "Lucky guy, they're going away for X (duration) to Y (destination) for Z (purpose)!"
Loose Lips, Sink Ships but you want to have some brag factor, can’t live in a bubble all your life…If it is one or more of the neighbours, then get the Hell out of there, if you can…Then again, what are you going to moving into? At least here you know your situation…
The cistern to a safe room is great idea and even better with a vault door…A friend did almost the same thing except used a cold room built of cinder blocks…All wood interior with gun racks built in, storage cabinets for ammo, file cabinets for loading supplies, just beautiful…thieves took crow bars and sledge hammers and knocked a huge hole in the wall, walked in and took everything because that was the strongbox that everything was put into, jewellery, cameras, optics, furs and of course all the guns and shooting/hunting equipment…
Goes to the comparison of cover vs. concealment… In his case he was only gone for the weekend but the police figured it took them maybe 20 minutes to break through
When he rebuilt the room, he ripped out the inside wall completely and built new -- again with cinder blocks but this time with re-bar welded at the top and bottom to steel plates in every one of the block’s holes and filled with cement…Has an I-beam for the lintel with the re-bar welded to that on the sides of the door…Even if they knocked all the blocks down again, the re-bar makes it into a prison cell…
But by all means conceal the entry…a really tall painting on hinges, swings away to reveal the door…A tapestry or oriental rug on the wall or as mentioned, build a false front bookcase in front and on either side of the doorway!
Unless you hire a K9 patrol for your place, the family pet is not the best idea for protection unless both you and the dog are trained to work together…Big dogs are intimidating and will exert their territorial imperative but misplaced aggression could lead to a dead dog…Sure barking may scare off the robber just as racking the slide of a pump shotgun will scare away assailants…
If they want your place, they’ll take your place!
They can shoot the dog with tranquilizers or put it in hamburger (or poison), shoot them dead, beat them with crowbars, stab them with spears, bolt/arrow, restrain them with the grab sticks like ASPCA uses…I know there is a dog, I wear a huge pad on my arm and carry a 10” Chef’s knife in hand…doggie bites padding, grips and sets themselves and you just stab them in the neck, sever the major arteries, wait two, three minutes and toy have a dead, silent killed, dog…
So, unless you want to be arrested for animal cruelty, you can’t leave a dog unattended in a home for longer then 1, 2, 3 days (dependent upon locale and clime) that means they go with you, stuck in a shelter or the neighbour's kid comes and walks it, feeds it, cleans up after it every day -- so what’s the use, might as well get a sound activated deck with a barking dog CD...
I've been burgled a few times, ten!...House, twice; detached garage, twice; trailer, once;, cottage, once; from auto, thrice, work, twice and each time it was easily fenced goods, CD players, VCRs, TV, microwaves, typewriters, copiers, stuff like that which means kids or maybe junkies, but inexperienced not pros, and were all random acts as they span 30 years...The cars and trailer were all targets of opportunity—wrong place at the wrong time…but the insurance settled everything so what do I care, all could and were replaced, nothing of great value or significance…Not like a house fire 3 Xmas ago that destroyed everything—memories are all that’s left
