The family home's valuables, now in a unit with far fewer places to hide them
Cheltenham's downsizers arrive in a townhouse or apartment near Southland with the documents, jewellery and keepsakes of a four-bedroom house and nowhere sensible to keep them. Young families in the mid-century homes on the quieter streets have the opposite problem: a house full of hiding places, none of them any good. Both need a safe sized to the contents and fixed where it cannot walk.
True Locksmith supplies and fits safes across Cheltenham, Victoria, from compact units that sit in a wardrobe base to full-height cabinets in a garage, each anchored so it stays where it was put. The home safes service explains the ratings; the Cheltenham locksmith page covers the rest.
A townhouse or apartment rarely has a spare cupboard, so the safe is chosen to fit a wardrobe base, a cabinet or under a stair. Compact units still carry fire and burglary ratings; the trade-off is capacity, so the contents are measured first.
Ground-floor units and mid-century homes on a slab take expansion bolts; an upper-floor apartment with a timber or composite floor needs through-bolts into a joist or a steel plate. Body corporate rules are checked before any drilling into a common slab.
The code is programmed in your presence, never left as a factory default, and not written on a card in the kitchen drawer. Where a unit has a key override, you are shown a sensible place for that key outside the home.
The downsizing move is the main trigger, often within a month of settling into the unit when the jewellery box is still on the dresser. Young families buy a safe when the first passports arrive, and both groups call after a break-in nearby. Apartment owners sometimes buy a safe because the body corporate's rules make upgrading the entry door difficult, so securing the valuables is the practical answer. Each installation is quoted on the phone.
Yes. A unit on a timber or composite floor is through-bolted into a joist or onto a steel spreader plate rather than into a slab, which holds just as firmly. True Locksmith checks the floor on Cheltenham, Victoria, apartments before recommending a unit.
Usually not for a unit's own floor, but some owners corporations treat the slab as common property and ask to be told. We check the rules before drilling and use anchors that can be removed and made good if the unit is sold.
Small enough to fit a wardrobe base, provided it carries a real fire or burglary rating and is bolted down. A small rated safe that cannot be carried out beats a large unrated box, and most downsizers need less room than they expect.
The same service is described for Home Safes in Heatherton and Home Safes in Bentleigh East .
Tell us whether it is a house or a unit, what you want to protect and where it could go, via the contact page. Neale will recommend a unit that fits the space, confirm how it will be anchored, and give one price for supply and installation.
