I’m curious to know who uses hotel safes. Because it seems to me that they’re anything but safe.
I’m not a thief, but if I were, the first place I would expect to find something valuable is in a safe.
But, you may say, the safe is locked and only the guest who knows the combination can open it. Well, as I know from personal experience, that’s not quite the case.
About seven years ago, I was staying in a hotel in London’s Paddington area. I left some valuables in the safe, but when I came back, it refused to open.
When I informed the employee at the check-in counter, he wasn’t at all surprised. He said something along the lines of: “Oh, not again.”
He then explained that there was a device that could open the safe, but it was at an affiliated hotel down the road and we’d have to wait for somebody to bring it up.
Sure enough, in time, another hotel staff member came up to the room with a device that resembled a medical thermometer and opened my safe.
I’m not implying that we should be suspicious of all hotel staff, but if they have access to this device you can be sure that anybody with the wherewithal to get into your hotel room and the desire to steal your stuff can probably get one, too.
That still leaves the question: where’s the best place to keep your valuables?
