Well, it should be. I haven’t had any luck. There seems to be a gulf between practice locks and a real home lock.
Granted, I only practice on a real lock when someone gets locked out of their house. (I keep my picks in my car emergency kit)
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My concern beyond any potential theft or related incidents is if one has a pet and a delivery person opens the door and the pet runs out i wouldn’t expect that delivery person to be able to safety retrieve them, if at all.
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That’s a very good point, bro.
Once in the 90’s as a younger man, when I lived in a third floor apartment on a hill where the windows were only accessible by an experienced freeclimber, I managed to lock myself out by leaving both long deadbolts and a chain locked on the steel core door, going out the attached garage door I’d reprogrammed to only recognize my customized remote, and then dropping the remote in a parking lot where it got run over by a truck before I retrieved it and discovered I couldn’t get in my garage door, which was one of the few still in use that couldn’t be opened by pushing in an L-bar at the top.
I had to borrow a powered hacksaw (mine being rather inaccessible in the garage) from a friend who also introduced me to the magic of air wedges. I can only imagine what anyone who saw my friend and me sawing through the locks on my front door must have thought, but thankfully no one called any authorities. I managed to replace the locks myself and my landlord was none the wiser.
TL;DR - The only B&E attempt I ever managed to outsmart was my own. I also learned a valuable lesson about the price of paranoia.
That said, I ain’t installing this thing. Because what I’ve really learned is that the best defense against thieves is not tempting strangers in the first place.
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I would also say, if anyone has an apartment or home with locking windows always lock them if they are accessible somehow. Not a lot of people bother to lock them if they’ve unlocked them once.
We’ve locked ourselves out a few times in the childhood home i grew up in and we managed to get back in by opening the small window to the bathroom. It was just big enough for a kid to use.
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Yep, and that’s a corollary to the Don’t Tempt Thieves strategy. Addicts rarely care, but sober thieves get nervous quick and will pass on anything challenging in favor of easy marks. Yet another reason this is a terrible idea.
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While whispering Amazon recommendations into your ear. “I noticed your Star Wars pajamas. Perhaps you would be interested in these other products.”
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Truly, a glorious future when the 3rd part doctrine might actually allow you to throw a literal party in a ‘consenting’ party’s house…
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The “other products” are also just the same pajamas from six different Chinese outlet retailers.
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Sweet Jesus! If you ever met the parcel artists employed by UPS in my area, you’d never ever enable a service like this. On a related note, I’ve curtailed my Amazon purchases until they give me the option to select my preferred delivery service. Spoke to a customer service rep who told me this was one of their most requested enhancements.
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Likewise. The Amazon delivery folks are a mixed bag, and Amazon does not allow you to specify a shipping address as being a business address or hours-limited (they let you indicate no weekends, but that’s not helpful if the Amazon delivery driver is rolling up to your business address on a weekday at 8:45p). If I order something for delivery for my office, it would sure be nice to specify the open and close times and have them reflected in selection options for delivery services.
If Amazon ever does allow addresses to be specified as such or allows delivery service preference to be indicated, then I’ll consider resorting to them more often, but for now they’ve lost a good portion of my business.
You wouldn’t even have do to it with a smart lock: Just use a regular padlock that you have the key for. Leave your outside lockbox unlocked with the padlock hanging on it (seeing that there is nothing in the locker at first) put a note on the locker that says, ‘Dear delivery person, Kindly put the package in the locker, and then snap shut the padlock. KTHXBAI.’ boom, problem solved. #lowtech
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Fat Fucking Chance.
I give sellers bad reviews if their product was delivered by Amazon in an objectionable manner.
Let the sellers convince Amazon to fix their broken service.
I’ve had Amazon deliver to my business address on a Sunday morning, once at 7:30 pm.
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No Agent 13?
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Of course this will never be abused by (cough,cough)“law enforcement”!
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Excellent point
Someone on Twitter pointed out that this is going to get POC delivery drivers killed. “Oh a brown person is breaking into the Jones’ house!”
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