Natural disasters? No problem.

I've been informed there is a particular location in North Carolina that has the fewest incidents of natural disaster. It is not affected at all by earthquakes, hasn't experienced a tornado in decades, elevated enough to avoid flooding and if there is a hurricane, the geography diminishes the storm to have negligible impact.

That is an interesting fact and a great blessing if you live there. But, most of us don't. For those of us, like myself, who live in an area where natural disasters are a fact of life, you will have to deal with the consequences of that reality at some point.

After a hurricane struck our state this year, this safe was left for several weeks in a flooded garage. The electronic lock was compromised as a result of the storms impact and the owner finally decided he needed to have the container opened to recover its contents before replacing it.

As unfortunate as it is to find yourself in the path of a hurricane, that misfortune is magnified when the damages destroy or prevent you from accessing your insurance paperwork, valuables, money or whatever else you may need to have to make your way back to normalcy.

Having the ability to assist you in that restoration is a joy and a blessing to me. Hopefully, it can be the same for you. Whether it's a storm, a fire or a vandal, I hope to reduce the impact of those events for you.

Give me a call for a free quote!

Can you? Yes. Should you? Probably not.

Every decision you make will have pros and cons. It's a fact of life that we're all familiar with. No decision is perfect. Any good decision has a possibility of a negative you couldn't perceive before making it. Even bad decisions will often have a silver lining. Even if that lining is nothing more than learning which bad decisions you should not make again.

A business called for service on their safe... unfortunately, I was not available that day. Apparently they thought the need was extremely urgent so they called another provider. One that had NO experience with safe opening. They charged more than double what I would have to do the work and destroyed the safe in the process. Sadly, I don't have a satisfying "after" picture for this one. The container was entirely irreparable. Which meant they also had to purchase a new one. Which would be another 2'000 dollars (+/-).

The vendor they called was using a number that dialed up as disconnected. They received a call back from a blocked number. The person showed up in an unmarked vehicle with no identification and the invoice they issued was boilerplate generic, also containing literally zero identifying information. Before they started cutting, they lied to the client and told them "all they would have to do is file a warranty claim for a new door." Which is not a service provided by ANY safe manufacturer. All the red flags were in place for my client to turn this vendor away, but their desperation to get into the safe led them to make a bad decision. One of the variety where the only silver lining is that you certainly won't make it again.

You can check out my blog post "Some things are better left alone." To see what the proper end result of an opening and repair service looks like.

Let the bad decisions of others be wisdom for you. Hire a qualified professional (who isn't concerned with being identified). It will save you a lot of time, money and frustration.

Some Things are Better Left Alone

When it comes to speaking in public settings, confidence can help you overcome the nerves. Intuition can help you change a car tire or know when your steak is cooked to the temperature you like. Something that confidence and intuition cannot help you do is change a safe combination without proper instruction or the required tools. And if you do attempt to do it anyway, it can be a costly service to fix what you may think to be a small mistake.

The call seemed innocuous enough... "Our guy tried to change the combination on our safe and now we can't get it opened." They were very close so I said I would be right over. Immediately upon seeing the safe, I knew I was in for a treat. They had removed the case cover and relocker strap and left them lying on the top of the safe when they shut the door to test their work. Intuition doesn't inform you that you should always test combination changes with the door open. And once you do it incorrectly, there is no going back without professional help.

Knowing I would need at least 2 holes to manipulate each of the relocking devices back out of the way to get the door open again, I got my tools into position and started toiling away. All in all, it only took a little over 2 hours. This particular type of lockout is one I've had to do a few times but manipulating multiple locking components manually, and blindly, is always a little bit tricky.

I have always enjoyed puzzles. Sudoku, word scrambles, scrabble. I got into lock-picking as a hobby a few years before I started doing this professionally because it was (in my mind) the next step in the evolution of my puzzle love. Then, when that started to lose its glimmer, I took a shine to safes. There is little to me that is more satisfying than that feeling when I slip the final piece into place and that beautiful image (of an open door) unfolds itself in front of me.

After opening the safe, and patching everything up nicely, I installed a much more user friendly Electronic lock on the safe so that future combination changes could be done from the user interface... and hopefully I won't need to return to this one again, except to show someone how to change a battery.

Confidence and intuition can do a lot for you. Especially when combined with a little bit of determination and persistence. But it cannot get you back into a safe after this little mistake has been made. Some things are better left alone. And some things are better left to someone who knows.

- Dan Bailey