Don’t be complacent if you live in a flat

Someone said to me the other day that they don’t have to worry about being burgled because they live in a flat and any burglar would have to get in through two doors. Now I think they’re wrong to think like that, because I guarantee you that I can get into the communal door of any block of flats without using tools, without making any noise, without damaging anything, and I can do it really quickly.

The majority of blocks of flats have a door entry system, and the majority of those door entry systems have a trade timer, which allows people like the postman and delivery drivers and similar to get into the block of flats during the day. The thing is most burglaries take place during the day when the home is empty, people are out at work. It’s not the case that burglaries predominantly happen at night when people are out, people are out during the day consistently because they’ve gone to work.

So with the door entry system with the trades timer, anyone can just go up to the the door entry system, press the trades button and they’re in.
Some don’t have the trades timer on there at all, but I guarantee you I can get in through any of those too. I’ve just got to be a bit more patient. All I do is I wait for someone else to go in with a key, and I tailgate in with them. You know how it works, people will hold the door open for someone approaching behind them. They don’t know who’s going into a block of flats and they don’t know all the residents. So I could get in through that door, and any burglar can get in through that door, with no problem at all during the day, slightly different during the evening but again all I’ve got to do, as a burglar, is to wait around for someone else to go in. That could be food delivery driver for instance. Just a bit of patience needed for any burglar to get into any block of flats very easily.

So you have to make sure that your flat door is secure, just the same as any house door has to be secure. What you need on a flat door is a lock
to British Standard BS8621. Normally we talk about BS3621 but for flats it’s 8621. Those locks that conform to this standard have all the same strength requirements of a lock for a house but they have keyless means of unlocking and getting out, so it’s safer in the event of a fire. Obviously in a flat, especially those that are above ground floor, you can’t just jump out of the window if there’s a fire, you’ve got to be able to get out through that one single flat entrance door, and you need to do that without having to panic and find what you’ve done with your keys.

Look for locks bearing the British Standard Kitemark, and the number BS8621.