Innocent-Looking Starfish Makes Your Home Safer
By Benjamen Johnson
This innocuous little starfish will keep sliding glass doors from opening too far, especially ones where the door slides on the outside and you can’t use a bar to secure it. The SecureIt can also keep windows from being opened too far, much like a window lock.
If you choose to hang stuff from the SecureIt, the 3-3/8″ suction cup can hold 50 pounds. You can affix the 4″-diameter, 2″-thick SecureIt to any smooth, clean, and dry surface. If you need to remove it, simply pull the tab.
Available in Sky, Sea Mist Green, and Clear, a pack of two SecureIts goes for $20.
SecureIt [Corporate Site]
SecureIt [Improvements]
May 1st, 2009 at 11:43 am
I’m confused. Is this Martha Stewart-monger or Toolmonger?
May 1st, 2009 at 12:14 pm
I’m all for security solutions that don’t LOOK like security. So I disagree with dmiff.
However, it’d be nice to have more than just the ad copy - has the toolmonger tried these? How well do the suctions hold? Would the security features be easily compromised by simply pushing harder on the sliding door?
May 1st, 2009 at 12:28 pm
@ Pepster
Judging by the visuals, I’d say that pushing harder wouldn’t help at all. Each one of the legs is an angled wedge (much like a door stop) so the harder you push on the door, the more friction you are creating between the leg and the frame and the harder the seal.
~Kevin
May 1st, 2009 at 4:14 pm
If the door slides on the outside, it follows that the starfish would also have to be on the outside. Maybe to keep people in?
May 1st, 2009 at 4:25 pm
@Copper:
Nope, it just means that the sliding door slides to the outside of the fixed door. You can still mount the starfish on the inside.
The sliding door at my mother’s house opens like this, we could never figure out why anybody would want the sliding door on the outside, unless it has something to do with a screen door.
May 3rd, 2009 at 8:55 am
Nice idea! I just bought 2 packs of 2. My roommate likes to keep her bedroom window open all the time and calls me paranoid when I close it when she’s gone. The back of our house is clearly visible to 2 large apartment buildings nearby with shady people who could easily see the open window and lack of cars in the driveway with a cheap pair of binoculars. Her window is reachable from the deck so it’s super easy to get in
I also have a fan in a downstairs window that I like to keep open, and both the inner and outer windows slide. This will make me feel better about leaving it open for that. The others are for my mom.
May 5th, 2009 at 5:59 pm
I’ll be sure to report back here when mine arrive so I can let everyone know what I think.
May 15th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
My SecureIt’s arrived! The shipping estimate was around $5 but I got an Email telling me it’s more expensive to ship to Canada, but they would be happy to split the difference with me. They ended up fitting 4 of them inside a normal USPS package making it $10 and they paid the difference. 12 days from order to delivery in part of Canada is pretty good. The border crossing often drags it out excessively long.
They seem to work as intended. The only problems I can see involve flexible glass in big windows if the gap between sliders is large. If you pull hard on the slider with the star in the middle of the glass, it can flex quite a bit and if the gap is large enough, it could squeeze past it. Using the star at the top or bottom edge of the window would minimize this however.
Clean windows help ensure a good stick. My roommates window now has one, as does the spare room where the cats do their business. I like em.