Safe Rooms and Home Security
By Chris Petry
Look, I know streaming is super convenient and all but I’m absolutely horrified by the thought of brilliant art being lost in the ether that is the cloud. That’s why I still buy Blu-Rays for my home video library. This past weekend, I had the pleasure of revisiting David Fincher’s appropriately-claustrophobic home invasion thriller Panic Room, starring Jodie Foster, Kristen Stewart, Forest Whitaker, Dwight Yoakam and Jared Leto on the brand new 4K disc from Sony. Why am I telling you all this? Because the film revolves around a mother and daughter, trapped in a steel panic room while thieves, trying to collect millions hidden in the house by the eccentric previous owner, attempt to infiltrate the room to no avail. Every corner of the house is wired with a security camera that feeds to a monitor system in that very room.
While that all seems like fodder for a good edge-of-your-seat time at the cinema, it’s not far removed from the realities of the modern world. First, camera surveillance has exploded in popularity since the introduction of compact doorbell cams. This article from just one year ago projected that doorbells camera installations would increase by 27% by the end of the current year. In December 2020, during the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, Amazon reports that 400,000 were sold worldwide through their site alone. Nearly ¾s of millennial homeowners have cameras outside their home as well as INSIDE their home. Why would you want cameras inside the home? Peace of mind. Fact of the matter is, it seems younger buyers are more concerned with safety and peace of mind than privacy. Can’t say I’m amongst their ranks but with the state of the world, can you blame them?
Furthermore, the global panic or safe room market is expected to value at around $1049.1 million by 2030. Right now, it rests around $645 million and those numbers are including homeowners within the median income range. If you read further down the article linked at the beginning of this paragraph, you’ll discover two things. One, developers DO make a distinction between panic rooms and safe rooms. Panic Rooms are designed for safety from invasion and safe rooms from unexpected climatic events. Also, you’ll discover the term “panic room” itself was popularized by the movie I referenced in the first paragraph of this article. I came full circle a little soon, it seems.
As expected, people are trying to move away from terms like “panic room,” which have negative implications, and prefer to use terms like “sanctuary space.” Which sounds nice and all but whether you’re retreating to a fortified room to avoid criminal intrusion or a tornado, you’re still retreating to a fortified room to get away from something. Loud children and in-laws count.
The last five years have been wildly unpredictable. Some would even say chaotic. The endless news cycle of doom has no doubt led to the increase of these so-called sanctuary spaces. Even if you’re lucky enough to never have to use such a space, safe rooms add value to homes in most markets so the benefit is twofold. In the old days, storm cellars and basements tended to double for these kinds of rooms. Today, most people prefer single-use space. So how many residential homes have a safe/panic/sanctuary room? Well, stats are a little hard to come by. That’s because many homeowners, rather smartly, view the disclosure of such a space to be counterintuitive to the purpose. That said, building stats point to a definite increase in popularity.
Safe rooms have been required in all US embassy buildings since the early 1980s. In Israel, buildings erected since 1992 have been required to feature fire and ammunition-resistant rooms. They’re hugely popular in Mexico. It only makes sense that American homeowners would begin to realize the value of a protected space within their private dwellings. Now, can we talk about that single shot camera drop from the 3rd floor to the keyhole, back to the kitchen counter and through the handle of the coffeepot? Sorry, I’m back to thinking about the movie.
