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Vacuum Locks

rtcgolf

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We are having a lot of people breaking into our vacuums, looking for coins. Anyone found a good system to these type of break ins?
 

MEP001

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I had to make heavy brackets for padlocks. The regular hasps won't keep them out.
 

soonermajic

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MeP is correct. However, I found best thing was NO LOVKS, & let them meth heqda dig every night. Gotta clean up next day, but no more break ins.
We went to Buffalo disc locks, so those sumbiches pried off the entire door!!! That's when I decided no morenlocks. Also leave the inside bill changer open. Randy gave me that idea, after a break in destroyed pur bill changer door & ruines the thing!
 

Randy

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We clean our vacuums out every day, this helps keep the scum out of them. We don't lock them for thevery reason stated before, they'll rip the door off the hinges. We have a car wash here who made a large locking assembly that goes around the lower part of the vacuum, it looks like steel drum that they cut in half, it looks like crap, but I guess it works. Over the last 30 years I've seen just about everything to try and lock the waste clean out doors on the vacuums. The simplest thing is to clean out yourvac's everyday and don't lock them.
 

Keith Baker

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I've tried a couple of times to find some kind of closer to pull the door back shut. But I haven't found anything. I wouldn't care if they dug through the vacuum dirt, but when the door doesn't shut then the vacuum is out of service.
 

Jim64

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I use zip ties. I have also had the doors destroyed so they could get 50 cents. When the zip ties are cut I look at the cameras. My latest guy looks to be in his mid 50’s and drives a new Acura sedan. He comes by every couple of nights and takes the dirt with him. He seems like a fruit loop.
 

copperglobe

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We have the same problem. We try to empty them each late afternoon to discourage the effort of these jerks that go through the dirt. If you put something on the vac that really makes it hard to open those doors they'll just destroy the whole vacuum to get to those pennies. It's frustrating to show up in the morning and see that several of the vac doors are hanging open and thinking how many good customers tried the vacs with no suction. I've got a wireless door sensor hooked up to my alarm system that triggers the alarm when they open the door on that vacuum but you wouldn't believe how many times they leave that vac alone and hit all the others (there's no way they know it's in there). Almost 100% of my break-ins on the vacs are from someone on foot or a bicycle so my cameras can't get a plate.
 

soonermajic

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How bout put live grass snakes in there each night, for a few weeks?
 

copperglobe

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I've thought how about poison ivy juice and spray it inside the vacs as well as into the garbage cans and dumpster. Set up cameras and watch those poor saps with bare hands and arms going through all those......
 

Ghetto Wash

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I've thought how about poison ivy juice and spray it inside the vacs as well as into the garbage cans and dumpster. Set up cameras and watch those poor saps with bare hands and arms going through all those......
I had a homeless encampment near by. They had a mattress laying out that they would lounge on and watch my customers. I purchased a large bag of sugar from Sam's and spread it around and on their mattress. Should have seen them jump next time they got on their mattress. The ants took care of that problem.
 

AnalyticWash

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I would recommend cheap luggage locks. They are flimsy enough that if they want to break them open it doesn't damage the hasp on the door. It discourages most people from messing with them.
 

AnalyticWash

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Randy

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JE Adams makes an aftermarket high security bar to cover the service door hasps as well. I hear these work great but make it a pain to check debris compartments.

Those are a JOKE! We tried them and they popped them open the next night with a prybar. The best thing you can do is don't lock the clean our doors and clean out the vacuums every day.
 

slash007

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I tried leaving the doors unlocked, but problem is that when they open them at midnight, anyone that uses them overnight won't get suction. I put on disk locks that worked for about 6 months till a bolt cutter was used to cut the hasp last week. Hoped it was a one off incident, so I replaced them and so far only one has been removed, but they took a crow bar to the hasp.
 

Eddie

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We are having a lot of people breaking into our vacuums, looking for coins. Anyone found a good system to these type of break ins?
We had the same problem with the vacs at our car wash and finally came up with a solution. We had tried leaving the vac bottom doors unlocked and using padlocks, but people continued to break them open and - in one case - using bolt cutters to break the padlock. At my brother's suggestion, we started using 1/4 inch bolts with nylon insert lock nuts. I was skeptical, but we haven't had any problems since making this change. Apparently, they give up after unsuccessfully trying to remove the lock nuts by hand. It's a cheap fix that worked for us.
 
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