Using Addalock in your hotel room gives you additional privacy and security

Using Addalock in your hotel room gives you additional privacy and security

The following pictures will help you understand how and why to use the Addalock in your hotel. The pictures were taken by me on January 21st 2012 in my hotel room.

When you stay in a hotel room, you may not realize how many people have access to your room. These days, the majority of hotels use plastic key cards that they program and give to you for entry into your room. They program that key in a machine at the front desk to open your door only. Sometimes they give you one of these cards, sometimes more. Once you’re in the room, you feel safe and secure knowing you have the only cards that access that room. Unfortunately it’s not that simple.

Hotels large and small all employ a large number of staff. Sometimes these employees need access to your room as a part of their daily tasks, so them having a card that accesses your room makes sense. However, what you need to realize is that many more employees can easily access your hotel room and that means putting a lot of trust in mostly strangers. Just some of the people that may have 24hr access to your hotel room whether you’re in it or not include:

• Cleaning staff that need to clean the rooms daily.
• Cleaning staff supervisors that supervise the cleaners and check their work.
• Maintenance personnel that need to go into different rooms to make repairs.
• Security personnel that may need to get into the room.
• Hotel managers and assistant mangers.
• Front desk staff.
• Friends of a front desk member of staff that is not honest.

The bigger the hotel the more people that have access to your room any time of the day.  Think about the possibility of one of those staff members giving access  to one of their friends and it just adds to number of people that can and may have access to your room. Lastly, think about complete strangers, whether they live in the area of the hotel or not, strolling up to the hotel saying they lost their key. You are depending on the diligence of the hotel staff to ensure they ask for identification before issuing another copy of the access key. Most hotels have strict policies and guidelines plus well-trained and honest staff that do their best to protect you and your possessions, but it only takes one dishonest or unreliable staff member to put you at risk.

While there is little you can do about hotel staff entering the room when you’re away from your hotel during the day. It is important that you have additional safety, security and privacy while in room. Whether you are travelling with your family, a single woman travelling alone, or anyone looking for added security protection and privacy in your hotel room, the Addalock provides all this, while at the same time being portable and easy to install.

Now, most hotels do have added locks on the doors so that hotel staff cannot just walk in at any time. For instance, the most common one is the flip lock, which allows you to open the door slightly to see who is there. You can then decide whether or not to grant access to this person. Also, people often use it as a secondary lock, thinking people cannot easily force their way in, even with the door closed. Unfortunately, this is not a secure lock and can be broken into. See our video “ Is this lock safe” for an example.

From the pictures below you will notice the brass plate on the door. This does not come with the lock but is used to either secure for the lock or to cover up damage to the door where the lock used to be installed. Any lock mounted onto the face of a door using just a few small screws such as the flip lock or chain lock can be forced open with a kick or a strong shoulder slam. While these locks are good for some privacy, they are little protection against someone intending on entering your hotel room.

The Addalock works to keep the door locked and shut tight because of it’s design. The chrome body section has two claws that you insert into the door strike (see below left). This grips the frame of the door. You then close the door while holding the handle and slide the other part of the Addalock in place, keeping the door jammed into place. Notice that I am placing the claws of the body into the lower hole in the strike as the top one is used for the deadbolt on the door and the bottom one for the latch. (That is why I called it Add-A-Lock because the deadbolt is a lock already.) If the latch on the door is too large to fit through the hole in the body of the Addalock (see bottom right) it is no problem. We want the Addalock to grip the strike and whether the latch fits through the hole is not important.

The following pictures will show you how the Addalock should look if you have it installed properly.

1. Image 1 shows that the body has been secured into the strike of the frame and the door closed as you have learned above. If it was not in properly you would not be able to close the door.
2. Image 2 shows that the Addalock’s red handle has been attached to the body by inserting the moving rod from the handle into the hole in the body and just letting the handle drop till it is tight against the door.
3. Images 3 and 4 show different angles of what the correctly installed Addalock should look like.

The point of this brochure is not to scare you away from staying at hotels altogether. Instead, it was done to bring to your attention some of the gaps in privacy and security that may exist, and how the Addalock can add to both your actual safety and security as well as to your feeling of being safe and secure while staying away from home.