Don't forget the floor

[TexasGal]

I've seen the discussions on hardening the door frame with screws, but I haven’t seen anyone talk about the floor…unless I’ve just missed it.

We went up this weekend to work on our cabin and I had to wonder if someone didn’t try to get it from under the house. We sit on a slope, so the crawl space at the back up the cabin is a little higher than at the front. The plywood floor has some surface cracks here and there and we’ve seen a few nail pops. But one particular crack looked fresh to me (no dirt in it) and there was two nails popped up a little around that piece of wood. Maybe it was nothing, but we went around the cabin and dropped 3” screws into the floor to make it a little more difficult to push up, just in case.

[OutWestTX]

If only people worked as hard at a job as they did breaking into someone else's place. 

[jhull87]

Not sure of a solution but you got me thinking. If someone were to get under the crawl space with a saws-all they could come up through the floor. This wouldn't be a problem if you lived in the house but a bug out location? Maybe something to think about.

[never_retreat]

I've really never heard of a common thief going though that much work to get into a house.
Considering if the have the upper hand of a out of site house they would just work over a door till they got in.
Could you have gotten a bear under there banging around?

[LibertyBelle]

I've really never heard of a common thief going though that much work to get into a house.
Considering if the have the upper hand of a out of site house they would just work over a door till they got in.
Could you have gotten a bear under there banging around?

Unless a thief is not in a hurry, yet suspects that someone may be looking in on the place. For some people "looking in on the place" usually means pulling into the driveway, taking a quick look around (often times just from the front seat), then leaving a few seconds later if nothing unusual stands out.  By using the floor as point of entry, the thief could come and go at leisure without drawing any outside attention.

Although a rambling bear could certainly pop floor boards up.  I've seen where they've torn doors and window screens completely off of hunting cabins.

[Caveat]

I have heard of thieves going down through ceilings and even cutting through a home's exterior wall to get to a safe. Once in they can do what they and if it means going under while being undetected all the better their eyes.

[jhull87]

I have heard of thieves going down through ceilings and even cutting through a home's exterior wall to get to a safe. Once in they can do what they and if it means going under while being undetected all the better their eyes.

I've heard of the same thing. our local hardware has been broken into several times through the roof. Fortunantly, they have an alarm system. But once inside they could walk around the upstairs with no one being the wiser and take their time.

Going off of that could anyone think of a way to make it harder for a theif to come up through the floor if they had the time to cut a hole with a saws all? It seems like it wouldn't be to hard to cut through some plywood even if there was tile layed on top of it.