Prison

Cape Town, South Africa (3 March, 2008)

This is the main entrance to our flat here in Cape Town. You might notice more than a passing resemblance to a prison cell. But pretty much all flats in the complex have this kind of “security” gate, or so they are called by the local residents. What I find fascinating is the gate can only be opened with a key from the inside—it doesn’t have a handle. And the lock is so close to the frame it’s hard to turn the key—from the inside at least. In case of emergency, there’s no way we’ll be able to get out the door—we’ll have to jump out the window. Fortunately there are some sturdy trees right by our window so we should be able to get out with just some scratches.

By the way, our flat is inside a gated “compound”. There is a waist-high gate at the street entrance, with an automatic gate for which one needs a code or a frob. The gate is only waist high, but it has a nasty saw-tooth pattern at the top. And this seems to be a laid-back place. Some of the neighboring complexes have electric fence and/or barb-wire!

Also, everywhere you look you can see signs that aim (or so they seem) to deter crime. There are a million security and/or emergency response companies and their signs are on every property they protect. On the door of the rubbish closet in our complex is an interesting sign that indicates all the possessions of the residents are specially marked. Presumably so they can be identified and restored to the rightful owners by the police. Kind of like your clothes were when you went to summer camp.

I don’t know what compels people to live in such prisons. Clearly they do it to keep evil-doers out, but the security mechanisms bear an uncanny resemblance to those used to keep inmates in. The same happens in Mexico City, where people build 8-foot walls around their house. I’ve never seen barb-wire at a house in Mexico City. Then again, I haven’t been there for some time. Perhaps they’ve learned the trick by now.

It’s been very interesting to see how different security mechanism are used in different cities. In London our flat had a solid metal door (well, it had metal on the outside) with a “Chubb” lock. These are much in vogue in London as they are reputed to be un-pickable (and required by insurance companies). The key to these locks looks like an old-fashioned key, but the “bottom” is unique to each lock. You’ll get a better idea if you look at the Wikipedia article. This is the lock, by the way, for which we did not have a key the day the real-estate agent locked us out of the flat. They locksmith had to drill a small hole in the door to break the lock. This was followed by a very expensive visit by the landlady’s handy-man to replace the lock.

In Paris our flat has a sophisticated locking mechanism that had both vertical and horizontal dead-bolts, all of which were moved by the same key. I don’t know what this kind of lock is called, so I can’t find a picture for it. The key mechanism was waist-level near the door frame. As you turned the key, four horizontal bolts would slide into the frame plus two vertical ones; one at the top and one at the bottom. I always felt like I was closing Fort Knox when locking the door. We also had a metal door. In Paris and in London we lived in a larger building, which itself had a lock. In London we used a key, and in Paris a code.

All this security is in sharp contrast to the carefree ways of San Francisco, where millionaires feel comfortable with a simple lock on the door—and maybe an alarm system.

For now we’ll keep our fingers crossed and hope we don’t have to evacuate through the window…

R