How to make my storage cage more secure

I recall my son telling me that his expensive bike was stolen from his block of flats when the thief turned up with a battery powered angle grinder to access the pretty solid security cage and then remove the heavy duty lock with which the bike was tethered.  My point is, no security cage is impenetrable.

Motion activated security cameras will make everyone’s storage more secure.  But your strata committee may feel that isn’t warranted by the level of threat. Home and contents insurance will mitigate against loss if the SC is proved wrong.

Check and see how many thefts and break-ins there have been in the past. You may be installing security that you don’t need.

(Victoria)  My bike was stolen from my secure basement car park many years ago. It was secured with a rack dynabolted, and a U lock to the rack.  But the thief got around that with a crowbar. Cameras recorded footage, but the thief wasn’t found.  Thieves can break into anything.

I have a tip though – itemise the most valuable contents in the cage on your contents insurance policy.  I had my bike listed as a specified item on my insurance policy.  Nevertheless, my contents insurer who shall remain nameless kicked up a big stink.  I had police reports, camera footage, emails from my strata manager.  Nevertheless they spent four months fighting me, saying first that the bike was on common property (which it wasn’t – my car park was on title) and then the strata manager wrote emails in support of me to the insurer, backing up my claim that it was on private property, I paid rates on that land, yada yada.  Then the insurer decided to try a different tack, claiming that the bike was stored away from my home.  That failed, as I said the land was rateable and I owned it.  Then a new approach – the underwriting department claimed there was no intention to cover a basement car park.  I just held my ground, said they took my premium and also allowed me to list the bike as a specified item.  And I said that what they intended was irrelevant if it wasn’t in the policy documents.  They gave up and then paid the claim.  Like they should have.  The only reason they paid the claim in the end, so they said, was that the bike was listed on the policy.  My lesson from this was I now list my valuables, especially those I think the insurer may push back on if a claim needed to be made.

Make sure that the strata contents policy you select will actually cover storage cages.

Many strata contents insurers will specifically exclude storage cages.

If the policy has that exclusion, you’d not be able to claim.

Check th small print of your home and contents insurance.  Otherwise Google “bicycle insurance” – different insurers provide different levels of cover for different premiums.

Presumably it’s not in the middle of a desert.  I have spoken to police in an area where a friend was thinking of buying and was told, albeit unofficially, to avoid certain streets.  Building managers often quietly record any thefts and break-ins so they know if they need to beef up security without alarming the residents or potential occupants.

So, yes, report break-ins and thefts.

On the question of expensive bikes, they are very vulnerable and I know one block where to such machines disappeared from the bike room where they sat unlocked and unused for months.  There was not way of telling who took them or when (presumably during a move).  But simple security, like locking them to their racks, would probably have saved those bikes.

In my block, the only serious security breaches and major thefts occurred in the early days when the corrupt and incompetent building manager, employed by the developer, gave master keys to his staff.