‘Safe rooms’ gaining in popularity
From practical rooms to lavish lairs, firm offers choice of home hideouts
Sarajevo, the present-day capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, was a bustling city symbolizing peace and hope during the 1984 Olympics.
Less than a decade later, a violent civil war erupted leaving the once celebratory capital with crumbling infrastructure and memories of the bloodiest conflict in its history.
“It doesn’t take long for civilization to diminish drastically,” said John Liptak, who used the example of Sarajevo to explain why some Ottawa residents are installing safe rooms, commonly referred to as bunkers, in their homes.
Liptak is the CEO of OakWood, an award-winning renovation company in the nation’s capital. OakWood has been designing state-of-the-art short- or longterm emergency spaces for over 50 years.
Not all of their safe rooms are equipped for war — but it is one of the fears that drive clients to install an emergency room of their own. Liptak said the most common reason for installing a safe space is to protect one’s family.
“Everybody has to make a decision on their comfort level and if you’re comfortable with the way things are then by no means do you need a safe room ,” he said .“But if you feel like you want that added security and you have the financial capability of doing it, then by all means.”
Liptak said safe rooms could protect families in the instance of a home invasion, robbery, riot and yes — even a zombie apocalypse.
“Usually when a person is looking for a safe space, they have a problem they need a solution for. The problem is generally worry,” he said. “If you listen to the news you (might) be afraid of (Donald) Trump, you (might) be afraid of many things.
“Some people are just paranoid by nature.”
In 2017, Mainstreet/Postmedia* surveyed 2,050 random Canadians to gauge their perceptions of safety across 15 major cities after the release of Statistics Canada 2016 crime statistics. The survey found that about 75 per cent of respondents think Ottawa is a safe city.
The capital has the fourth lowest crime rate of the 15 major cities included in the survey. A report by the Ottawa police stated there was a 5.9 per cent increase in crime rate from 2015 to 2016, but a 0.6 per cent decrease in violent crime in the same period.
Regardless of the reason behind installation, each safe room is unique and can range in cost from a few thousand dollars to well over a million. The “nicest” safe space OakWood has built cost a whopping $2.8 million.
“Most safe spaces are very practical but today’s safe spaces are much more lavish than the old safe spaces,” said Liptak. Almost every space has at least one flat screen television and a hard drive filled with movies and music. Electric fireplaces are popular and they have even installed large whirlpools.
The majority of OakWood’s clients are embassies, politicians, the military and high-ranking business leaders or tech companies. Only about five per cent are the average homeowner.
Liptak said that while every Safe Space is unique, all are hidden.
Some entryways are behind fake fridges or closets and many are in basements. Each space also takes into account proper air ventilation, waste management, water filtration, food access, communication devices — essentially anything you would need to survive for days, and even months or years protected from the outside world.
Retina or fingerprint scanners, pin codes and fobs are used to ensure security. Additionally, both parties must sign a non-disclosure agreement so that the design remains secret.
“There is not really a great difficulty in making these happen, it’s a question of keeping it quiet,” Liptak said. “What happens in these safe rooms stays in these safe rooms.”
*The Mainstreet/Postmedia poll has a margin of error of +/- 2.16 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.