Last December, I thought I was going to be going to a routine doctor appointment. I was just about 37 weeks pregnant with my son and I had been struggling with high blood pressure for about a week. You can guess how surprised I was when the doctor told me that because of me showing signs of preeclampsia that I would have to be induced that day. This was something I was completely unprepared for.
Our dog and cats were at home. I had a pile of laundry sitting on the bedroom floor. I didn’t have any clothes for the baby or my hospital bag with me. Luckily, my parents and my neighbors had a spare key to the house or else my husband would have had to leave the hospital (which was 40 minutes from our house) to pick up things as well as take care of our pets.
What would you do in a situation like this? Do you have a spare key hidden around the outside of the house somewhere? Would you be able to describe to someone where to find it?
Situations like this are where the Master Lock 5401D makes perfect sense. This key safe can be either mounted or attached to a door handle, and stores up to five keys. You get to choose your own 4-digit combination, which makes it so much easier to remember!
I would like to note that since the time I had my son last year, we’ve since moved. This house has one of those electronic garage door panels, but the key safe gives us some extra security because if the garage door isn’t working or if we lose power then the keypad is useless.
Another nice thing about this key safe is that there is a shutter door that helps keep the dials from weather, dirt, or grime, which is a common problem with outdoor dial locks.
This key safe is also great if you have a house cleaner who comes over while you are at work, someone who lets your dog out, or even for kids when they come home from school. Then of course there are the times when something unforeseen happens (like being induced three weeks before your due date!) and you need someone to be able to get into your house.
Another great use for the safe is if you are wanting to store a number of keys together in one place. For example, you may have keys to a shed, lawn tractor, or trailer. You could mount the key safe on the side of the shed so then all of the keys are easily accessible when you are outside doing yard work.
You can pick up one of these key safe’s for yourself at hardware stores such as Lowes or Home Depot, and online on Amazon.
Eleven months later, E and I are both doing great despite his rather unanticipated arrival! Luckily, both my parents and our neighbors had keys to our house so my mom was able to pick up my hospital bag and clothes for E, and my neighbors were able to take care of the animals. We were fortunate in that case, but since then we have made sure that we were prepared by installing the Master Lock key safe!
