<p>I'm talking about the kind you find in hotel rooms, something you can store your laptop in, and other small valuables.</p>
<p>Did you buy or rent one for your S/D in college? Is that too geeky? Or is that the right thing to do? Is it generally common for students to have these in dorm rooms?</p>
<p>We’ve had room safe threads before. I believe the consensus was that normal caution and LOCKING THE DORM ROOM DOOR should be plenty. My D never had a room safe, nor did any of her roommates. But they only started being religious about locking their door at night when a drunken classmate in his underwear came into their darkened room, mistakenly thinking it was his.</p>
<p>EEEK!</p>
<p>Where I live you can buy a small room safe, designed to hold a laptop and other very small valuables. It is bolted into floor etc, so bring tools with you to move-in weekend, if you want one. What it helps with is where child has roommate who keeps forgetting to lock door, and child goes out, he/she can leave laptop etc there. Up to you.</p>
<p>too easy to steal the safe, unless you can bolt it down. Dorm would not be happy about that. I bought my daughter a locking cable for the laptop (i would do it for a desktop too, if she had one). It discourages the opportunistic thief. I suppose you can use a locking cable for a safe too. Then again, a metal box with a locking cable would be just as effective.</p>
<p>My D used a laptop cable which secured the laptop to her desk. I have also heard about the safes being stolen.</p>
<p>During freshman year, she liked to have her door propped open so people would stop by, but she and her roommate were very careful to always lock the room if they weren’t in it.</p>
<p>^Especially if you hide the metal box. Otherwise, the box just screams, “Valuable stuff inside here.”</p>
<p>Son actually had a large lockable cupboard in his dorm room. He used it for check book and instruments. The laptop lock was sadly never used. In his apt. he now has a large locking trunk that he could cable lock around his bed if he wanted but does not. He does lock the trunk. A little obvious if someones carrying it out of his room.</p>
<p>His bedroom houses 3 guys…I’ve seen it from the doorway. It would take hours to find anything in that room…ugh.</p>
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<p>Same with our D. Save your money on that one. If your student wants one, offer to pay. Otherwise, it could well never make it out of the original packaging.</p>
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<p>So true :D</p>
<p>My sister bought S1 a dorm safe as a hs graduation present. He returned it to WalMart for a gift card, mostly because he didn’t want to ship the safe cross-country (what WAS she thinking?). Ended up using the money for dorm decor, and never had a problem with anything disappearing from the dorm room, even tho 4 guys shared a suite of rooms with multiple doors that could be left unlocked.</p>
<p>D has a 2-drawer locking file cabinet under her desk. It’s great to use for keeping papers, etc. organized, and she uses the 2nd drawer to store valuables. Another vote to NOT get the laptop lock. We brought hers back home on parent’s weekend!</p>
<p>We got a lockable file cabinet (2 drawers, one of them can be locked), and a cable for the laptop to connect to the desk.</p>
<p>Most dorm thieves are looking for easy-to-take-and-go stuff, and will not spend time breaking into drawers… We also have all kids’ electronics insured (sure proved worth it after daughter’s laptop “jumped off” her bunk-bed)</p>
<p>nother vote for “no” on the laptop lock. I think it is still in its package 5 years later. :eek:</p>
<p>Sorry, I don’t get it. Why all the resounding "NO!"s on the laptop lock? Do you need to be a rocket scientist to use it, or are people just lazy?</p>
<p>Or is it too difficult to get out of the darn package? ;)</p>
<p>Am I confusing the laptop lock with the cable? I was under the impression that the cable was a great idea.</p>
<p>Laptop lock (cable) is a terrific idea… but for some reason they won’t use the darn thing. Maybe they feel it’s an open statement of distrust of their friends…or they actually carry the laptop around with them in the room so it’s a pain. I don’t know. I provided one; saw it not being used and stated if the laptop disappears then he wil be replacing it.</p>
<p>We got Lojack for laptops installed on freshman S’s laptop. This is supposed to help you recover the laptop if its stolen. If the computer signs on to the Internet after it has been reported stolen, its location can be traced and police notified. No idea how well it works cause we haven’t had to use it (so far!).</p>
<p>SDMom . Is there a monthly fee with that?</p>
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<p>Lojack is a software, not a hardware piece. If someone gets a hold of the computer and reinstalls the operating system before going on the Internet, Lojack will be useless.</p>
<p>Sax,
The fee you pay (I think like 40 bucks, but they were offering a deal last year so I think we got it for $20) gives you one year of coverage. We’ll reassess for next year when I see what S’s living arrangements are.</p>
<p>BunsenBurner,
Yes Lojack is software, but simply reinstalling the operating system is not supposed to delete it. At least in our case it did not. My son’s laptop crashed, and he had to reinstall Windows Vista with a recovery disc. After the recovery, all of his other downloaded programs were gone, but the Lojack was still there (you can login to the Lojack website and see when your computer last logged in – S’s logged in after he did the recovery.)</p>
<p>I’m not a computer expert, so certainly do your own research on this. The Lojack website does claim that many computers manufacturers have pre-installed something in their computers that allows it to survive operating system reinstallations, hard drive reformats, and hard drive replacements. </p>
<p>Trust that if you will. I just know I did not trust my son to use his laptop lock!</p>
<p>My thought would be that if the safe were plainly visible, and weighed less than 100 lbs (however would you haul it in) it could be stolen. Locking cabinets, etc., also are not fool proof, as I am sure the posters above realized. The best locks are generally combination locks, since they are harder to break open. File cabinet locks sometimes can be jimmied with a screwdriver. I am not a thief, but unfortunately I have been robbed previously. I think the best is to be vigilant in locking the door, and putting valuables out of sight (even if it is in a small safe.) Don’t bring too many valuables, and get insurance on the lap top and back up data regularly.</p>