Meter Reader had skeleton key to house!

System

dreamalive wrote: »

Yesterday my partner's mother had a man to read the meter for Southern Electric.

Her meter is kept in the basement of her bungalow so she came out to unlock the basement door for him, and he said "It's ok, I can let myself in, I have a key"

She was astounded when he produced a key and unlocked the basement door himself. He said it was a skeleton key that opened most Yale locks and Council properties!

The basement door has a yale lock and it's also private property. My partner's mother wants to know if she should change the lock and if she should report this to anyone?

What do you think? :think:

How long has your partner's mother lived in the bungalow ?
Is it a council bungalow (or was it recently council owned) ?

If she has only recently moved in, it would be a good idea to change the cylinders and keys for the main bungalow door(s) and change any important padlocks just in case the previous occupier had kept any keys.

2gorgeousgirls

Your local police station should have a crime prevention officer. In our town, they come out and have a check round your premises and offer advice as to how best to secure your property. Change to different type of lock, window locks etc.

Also if it is a basement, is the door in regular use, does it need to be opened from the outside? If not, could a bolt be fitted on the inside as an extra security measure?

Plushchris

scheming_gypsy wrote: »

I'm going on the run for being a potential rapist because i carry a penis round with me...

That would be considered suspicious if it wasnt yours...

adouglasmhor

Plushchris wrote: »

That would be considered suspicious if it wasn't below the size which the law considers dangerous...

fixed it for you

C_Mababejive

Jim_Slade wrote: »

I see. In the same way that two men walking amongst cars in a carpark late at night looking through every driver's window would not be of interest to the police, given that no crime has been committed.

Some fantastic logic you have there.

Exactly. Such behaviour may be deemed suspicious and if the Police waylaid them,they may have sufficient grounds to question them and perhaps search them. However if they didnt fess up to anything,and they were not carrying any implements which could be deemed to be in their posession for the purposes of committing a crime,then the Police would have to bid them good day and let them walk on.

If they were in possession of a huge bundle of car keys or a screwdriver,the copper might take the view that they were going equipped to steal and may arrest them on the strentth of that. If they came up with a plausible reason for being in possession of said items,again,plod would have to consider whether he could make it stick.

Now then..this person didnt break and enter this persons home and he didnt have the key for her home.

He was there lawfully and the customer had the key to her home. The person is said to have had "skeleton keys" which would in all likelihood have opened many doors and not specifically hers.

If the person has a reasonable explanation as to why he has them in his possession then there is no problem but even so,it isnt a criminal offence to be in possession of such items as illustrated by my web link in which anyone can buy them.

As for changing the locks...what for? they all work on the same archaic principles and can therefore almost all of them can be bumped,picked or bypassed.

Have you seen how quickly a typical cylinder lock fitted to modern upvc doors can be picked?

HalloweenJack

the OP hasnt come back since this was posted