Motorhome key safety
Hi,
This summer for the 1st time we're doing a 3 week tour of France. We've tried to cover all eventualities to ensure we have a great time. But one concern we do have is the trouble it would cause if we were to lose our MH key leaving us stranded. We've never lost a car key etc before but it could happen.
I was thinking of hiding a spare key on the MH perhaps in the toilet cassette locker and when we go out not locking that locker. There is a small area in the cassette locker where a key could be reasonable hidden. Another idea we've had is to leave a key with our neighbour and ring them to courier it to us in the eventuality of a key loss.
What have you done? What do you think of our toilet cassette idea?
Comments
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It sounds as though there are two of you. Perhaps your partner could carry a spare key? And a spare credit card on a different account is sensible too.
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Leaving it in the cassette locker certainly gets to the bottom of the problem you envisage if you lost your key and the likelihood of someone poking their hands and nose in that area are minimal.
Personally we both take a key when we go out and that certainly reduces the 'lost key' scenario.
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I would read your insurance policy because mine contains "Loss or damage arising from theft whilst the ignition keys of your motorhome have been left in or on your motorhome or your motorhome has been left unattended with the engine running". This rules out, for me, hiding the keys in the toilet cassette locker.
We need to separate the keys from the van when the van is unoccupied. We carry a set each. When this is not possible and one person has to carry the keys, then we carry them in separate garments eg jacket and trousers so we can feel the keys next to our body. Or, in a bag/rucksack.
All in zipped up pockets. In the rucksacks, the keys can be clipped inside the zipped up pocket using a very basic spring hook - like a Carabiner.
We check regularly that we have the keys.
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We carry a key each for the car - same principle, but I have mine chained to my belt, a spare set of caravan keys is hidden in the lockable floor of the boot. Many years ago I did lose the keys to the car when about 30` from home we ended up on the back of an AA recovery lorry to be taken home! As they say "Once bitten etc"
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I can't see any difference from touring with a car. I carry the main key/alarm fob which also has the safe key. My wife carries the spare. We leave a separate set of keys for lockers, toilet cassette etc. inside the van and a spare set in the safe.
I try and get into the habit of engaging the alarm if we both leave the Motorhome for showers etc. It is probably very low risk leaving everything open but we had a bad experience with the caravan many years ago on a site on the Med. coast. We had our keys and valuables with us at the pool. The van was broken into along with several others but we had no losses. Others were not so lucky. One had a substantial amount of money stolen and another, who left his car keys in the caravan had the car stolen.
Having said that, a Motorhome is more secure than a caravan and we now have full alarm system with doors and interior detection. The key is the key!
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We too carry a key each; being a very non-trusting and suspicious person I'd wonder whether anyone had seen us putting the spare key in the "secret place"
. We personally wouldn't do that, also for the reason Aspenshaw mentions, ie insurance. We do sometimes get a bit paranoid whilst out, and check at regular intervals the keys are still there! Talk about OCD 
, a bit like checking 3 times that you've locked the frontdoor behind you when you go on holiday!0
