My family’s legal documents are being kept somewhere at home, and its kinda weird to think about, like zero security, I doubt its even fireproof, definitely not waterproof, some flood is gonna destroy it.
I’m not a very legal person, but I can’t think of any documents that I can’t just request a copy.
If my apartment were to burn down I would have bigger problems to worry about, like homelessness and losing all my tech that took me years to aquire.
I actually asked because I was more of thinking about storing journals, but didn’t feel like elaborating in the post because nobody ever reads the body of a post anyways lol
This is not a thing one should anser in a public forum.
Shhhh 🤫 you’re ruining my burglary plans
My important documents are all in a folder inside my closet. Somewhere.
Other than that, the only stuff of value that I have are electronics, like my laptop, tv, phones.
My mom bought me a fireproof safe because she was giving me some jewelry to hold for my kids, and she also had some documents for me to keep.
It sat on the floor under a bed for years. Then I decided to get appraisals of the jewelry to add it to my homeowners insurance.
When I opened the safe, everything in it was moist and moldy.
Nothing important was lost or damaged, but it was nasty as hell.
At least it was safe
I’ve got my important data encrypted and backed up weekly to the cloud.
I used to have a 1985 sailboat where some previous owner had installed a safe. I guess cash was more important when cruising abroad 30+ years ago.
I have a caravan now. The caravan door is flimsy enough to tear open with your bare hands. I’d like to put something bolted to a cupboard wall just to lock up our electronic devices while we’re out and about.
The home safe is more about fire survival.
Keep in mind that many “fireproof” safes misrepresent their capabilities and the fireproofing itself can severely damage or destroy safe contents in a fire.
Tl;dr: the contents slow cook and soak in a mixture of water and whatever else was present for hours to days. Depending on the severity and duration of the fire, plastics will melt, metals will tarnish, and unprotected paper, wood, and similar contents will be destroyed.
Most more affordable safes are fireproofed via a layer of drywall material. Drywall is composed of gypsum, otherwise known as calcium sulfate dihydrate: CaSO4·2H2O .
The fireproofing doesn’t come from any direct insulating properties but the hydration of the gypsum. When exposed to enough heat, the water bound to calcium sulfate begins to unbind and boil out. The interior of the safe will remain at 100°C or less as the external heat energy from the fire is absorbed by this dehydration/phase change process, releasing water as steam.
This turns your safe into a big steamer/(low) pressure cooker. The safe boils during the fire, then sits and “cooks” for hours afterwards as the area cools down. The safe keypad will be inoperative, so you’ll be reliant on the backup key working. If that mechanism is damaged, the manufacturer or a locksmith will need to open it. No matter what, the contents will remain in a hot, damp environment for hours to days.
I put everything in our fire safe in silicone bags so u hope that does the trick.
What if you were to put a bunch of silica packets or beads in the safe? Or put an air tight container inside the safe
Everyone should have a cheap fire safe. For the documents that are super difficult to replace, if nothing else.
What documents are difficult to replace?
Birth cert, immunization records, high school and college diplomas. Name change docs. The list is endless.
For example because my birth state is anti-trans I would have to fight just to receive a copy of my birth certificate. They would make me come to that state in person and still may have ro wait weeks.
Birth cert, immunization records, high school and college diplomas. Name change docs. The list is endless.
The list reads like it only applies to backwards/undeveloped countries. Birth certificates aren’t a thing here, immunization records are in my digital patient file, I must have a paper diploma somewhere, although I have no idea where it is and I never had a need for it. The last time I had to prove I have a BSc. I just downloaded the signed PDF from the education service website. Any name changes would just be recorded in the government’s basic administration. Even things like the deed to my house is registered with the government and no one would ever ask me for the physical piece of paper, even when selling it.
Well, I do I have tucked into a random bookshelf one of those “World Atlas” book safes that everyone already knows is a storage box and not a book, because they’ve been sold virtually unchanged as far as I can tell since at least the early 1990s. As a little treat to anyone observant who notices this and thinks they’re so damn clever, inside I have nothing but a scaled down 3D printed replica of a cinder block.
It is astoundingly unlikely anyone will find where my valuables are actually hidden in my house, nor am I going to admit it on the internet.
I always wanted a hollowed out book as a child. So I took a steak knife and a random book I figured was big enough, and started painstakingly carving out the center. I still have it somewhere, it’s kinda cool, but now I really would rather have a bookshelf hidden door, or maybe behind a painting, hiding a secret lair.
It is astoundingly unlikely anyone will find where my valuables are actually hidden in my house, nor am I going to admit it on the internet.
In the mattress, huh?
We have a free online storage that was founded by the notaries in my country. I think nearly all important legal documents have a copy that is kept by the government.
Gun safe. Water proof, fire proof and locked. 200 lbs won’t be walking out so easily.
I have a home safe that doesn’t lock properly. To replace it would cost me everything that I’d put in a home safe.
I keep my valuables in an old CRT television that weighs more than sisyphus’s boulder. No one’s stealing that.
Thanks, now I know how to quickly burglarlize your house /kidding
But you don’t know which CRT television.
Nice try, Danny Ocean.
I just moved into a place with a (gun?) safe I don’t know how to open. So technically I have one.
Is it an old fashioned one with a number wheel? Try 0-25-0 or 25-50-25. I learned that one from Richard Feynman.
Care to explain?
Long story, but TL;DR: These are the factory settings for most older combination locks.
Feynman in one of his books explained that he picked locks as a hobby during and after WW2. So he knew how to pick locks, but his method for combination locks was not practical, basically a guessing game. At some point, a safe (I think installed on special orders by some overseer of the Manhattan project) was locked and no one knew the combination. So someone sent for a locksmith to open it. Feynman was hoping to find this locksmith, so he could ask him how to open such a safe. But, when he came to the room with the safe, the safe was open and the locksmith gone.
So he did what any sane person would do; he found out the name of the locksmith, started following him around for a bit and ultimately bought him a drink in a bar. When he introduced himself the locksmith recognized his name, Feynman being notorious for his shenigans including lockpicking. So he asks the locksmith how to open this kind of safe, and the locksmith responds “no idea”. So Feynman asks if he had no idea, why did he take the job and how did he open it. Then the locksmith explains that he was just going to show up, make some noise and all that, and then explain that he couldn’t crack the safe, here’s my bill thank you very much. But since he knew that these safes were all deliverd from the factory with either the standard combinations 0-25-0 or 25-50-25, he tried those first and that’s how he opened the safe.
Feynman found it baffling that someone had a big heavy safe custom installed for him, but was then too lazy to change the combination. He also went around the labs (where a lot of files realting to the Manhattan project were kept), and found out that quite a few combination locks on the file cabinets were still set to default.
Nope, digital, and it beeps a lot if you mess with it.
Maybe search the lock picking lawyer’s channel on youtube for the make and model.
The previous owner of our house had one, but luckily they took it with them
Bruh you gotta update. Lemmy now deserve to know, you owe us the update. Open it lol. Don’t leave us hanging on a cliffhanger
I doubt there’s anything interesting. We did wonder whether the “numbers” were related. It’s certainly got character!
