It’s not crazy to worry about getting home. It’s not crazy to lock your doors at night and check that the alarm is set. It’s not crazy to avoid the man who keeps gurning at you on the bus every time you look his way. It’s not crazy to worry. But is spending £50,000 to £500,000 on a bespoke panic room a little… crazy? Probably. But who am I to judge? I still find it hard to answer the phone to a withheld number.
What if your poor cat sitter was feeding your tabby just as your panic room decided to spray chlorine gas all over the place?
I could only find one advert from a panic room installation company in the UK. The video shared on the firm’s website is set in London and has a B-movie feel to it. Two men with guns enter a flat as an electronic voice does the narration. The video cuts to a mother and her children running to their panic room for safety. The voice says that I should take my family’s security seriously. It told me that with a panic room, I could ensure the survival of my loved ones, that I didn’t need to be afraid anymore.
The video ends with the family safely in their panic room as noxious gases flood the apartment and choke the assailants. The voice speeds up and says that the gases made the conditions unbearable for any human to endure. It then offers strobe lights, sound barriers, and integrated fog systems for additional safety. I turned my phone off. I suddenly felt very vulnerable. I was more scared of the voice than any potential intruder. And what if these things malfunction, I wondered. What if your poor cat sitter was feeding your tabby just as your panic room decided to spray chlorine gas all over the place? How do you explain that to the police?
But more than that, I wondered who needed these rooms. Who out there has one of these things? Celebrities? People of interest? But then why market these steel tombs to us common people? Who’s mad enough to buy one? The websites that sell them are as secretive as the people who own them. Prices are never listed. There are dropdown lists of what these panic rooms offer. ‘Ballistic protection up to FB7 (assault rifles).’ ‘Doors that blend in with the walls.’ ‘Fireproof for up to four hours.’ These rooms are nothing less than mini-fallout bunkers. They conjure up images of a world where neighbours shoot your pets and kill your grandmother for sustenance.
I was getting nowhere with my online shopping so I decided to call a couple of companies. The first receptionist I spoke to was as laconic as a disgraced celebrity on BBC Newsnight. I found another company that was a little more talkative. The saleswoman told me about the different types of rooms: the four-wall, the five-wall, and the six-wall. It took me a second to realise the fifth and sixth walls were the floor and ceiling. She couldn’t give me a price on the rooms but she did say that a door started at £7,000. What am I supposed to do with a door, especially if there are two walls on either side of it that aren’t 13 inches of concrete and steel? If I was a killer, I’d probably start on them. I wouldn’t bother with the door.
The saleswoman also explained that panic rooms – or ‘sanctuary rooms’, as they call them – are all about preference. She spoke about how they dealt with high-profile clients and that every room was tailor-made. Some even have floor-to-ceiling LCD screens that show you computerised images of the outside world. Others have smart TVs and snack dispensers. I explained that I lived in a flat. I think that crushed her a little bit. Already, I was a low-level client; living in a flat just meant less commission.
Going to see one of these things is near impossible. You can’t just walk into a person’s home and say, ‘Show me where you’d hide if I was to come in wielding an axe and a flamethrower.’ Even if I could, I’m not sure I’d go in. I’d be too scared that the door might close behind me and I’d be left with … well, myself. Your very own hypogeum.
When I think of panic rooms, I think of my demise. I’m also reminded of a school trip I took to Berlin when I was 17. We visited a Cold War bunker where the bunkbeds were stacked half a dozen high and every room was suicide-proof. The tour guide told us, just as we were coming to the end, that the promise of salvation was a lie and that the authorities never had any intention of saving the people inside the bunker. The bunker was the last stop. Panic rooms might seem like an escape, but to me it just feels like pulling the covers over your eyes in your childhood bedroom because your chair looks like a monster in the moonlight. When faced with danger, aren’t we supposed to choose between fight or flight? In a panic room, you can’t do either. You’re stuck. If I had £500,000, I think I’d spend it on something a little more life-affirming. But, again, what do I know? I’m not interesting enough to need one.
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