With millions of house keys lost every year, Yale might just have the answer to help keep your house safe and secure.
The firm says Brits have shared nearly 20 million spare keys with neighbours, friends, family and trade professionals – and subsequently lost track of them.
In 2016, keys were named the number one most commonly lost item for adults in the UK, with statistics showing 30 per cent of burglaries occur through a front door, either by forcing the door open or by using keys left in a ‘safe’ place such as under doormats or flower pots.
Here Yale gives some of its top tips to keep your home secure:
Install a strong cylinder – replacing your lock’s cylinder will mean all those lost spare keys become instantly useless
Keep spare keys with the family – make sure you only give keys to the most trustworthy members of your family and keep a note of who has them, reducing the chance of them going missing and reducing the risk of a burglary
Hide them better – keep spare keys out of the reach of thieves, particularly away from letterboxes and windows
Invest in a smart door lock – remove the need for keys altogether with a new lock system that uses Bluetooth, key cards and key tags to open locks
