If you haven't done so already, add "check the outside electrical outlets for spare keys" to your list of things to do after you've moved into your house. In our neighborhood at least that's where the construction crews like to keep one and in our case, leave it there for us to find five months after closing.
Shortly after closing on our first house years ago we, like most people I'm sure, changed the locks on every door. During the final walkthrough with the project manager on our new house we specifically asked if we needed to do this on the new house as well. He assured us that the locks would be changed just prior to us taking possession so only we would have the keys.
This afternoon I went outside with my older son to put up a Halloween pumpkin inflatable. Just to the right of our front door is an electrical outlet with a clear plastic cover. While I've used the ones on the back of the house a few times for power tools, this was the first time I'd had a reason to access the one on the front. And that's when I noticed it. Sitting inside clear as day was a house key. One that fit the locks on our front door perfectly. Five months we've been in our house now and all that time a key was sitting a few feet from the front door waiting for anyone to access it. To say I was livid (and my wife for that matter once I told her about it) was putting it mildly.
So thanks Ryan Homes. My home was essentially sitting wide open the past five months for anyone thanks to someone within your company's screw up. Seeing as my next door neighbor mentioned to me that she had noticed every time she'd come by to look at her house prior to closing she'd seen them slip the key in the same spot on her's it must be a common practice to place it there. So any of the work crews around here would have known exactly where to go to gain easy access to my house.
Even though it's a weekend I've already called and left terse messages for the project manager and the supervisor over him. I'm not entirely sure what I expect from them at this point but this goes beyond a simple mistake and someone needs to be held accountable for it.
