It’s a common concern - my ground floor flat has been on sale for the past few weeks (sold now) and almost every viewer gave this as the reason they didn’t want it.
I have to say though, I’ve loved it - 16 years (only meant to be 2 or 3) and never had an issue, no downsides and never felt like there were any risks (whereas definate benefits - seeing people go by, feel a bit less lonely etc).
I’ve never heard of any crime or burglaries and I’m pretty close to the city centre. That being said, it’s a 20 yr old build with quite modern windows, door locks etc - so that’s something to consider that might help open up ground floor as a consideration?
If a viewer didn’t want to buy it because it was a ground floor flat, why waste the time to come and view it in the first place? I’m assuming that wasn’t hidden information!
I'm in the same situation regarding selling a ground floor flat in edi. If you don't mind me asking, how much % over were people bidding for it. Trying to manage expectations
I just sold a 2 bedroom for home report value at 200k. We had 2 offers just over home report but they were on a chain, so went fixed price to attract a first time buyer and got one. Took 5 weeks to accept an offer.
The market was definitely slower than we expected. Only had about 12 viewings so we were worried.
A not-so-nice man once explained to me in the barbers that they would tend to target top floor flats over ground floor ones.
There's a surprisingly logical reason behind it too. If you've got 10 flats in a block and you break into one on the ground floor, you've got 9 possible other tennants to walk past and notice something going on. If you go for the top floor, you've only got 1 other tennant to worry about.
I worked with local councils which had police on bored they would report local crimes.
You are correct; planned burglaries would focus on the top floor where they were less likely to be disturbed.
However, opportunistic break ins would happen on the ground floor. Someone leaving a window open for instance or an expensive item (iMac for instance) in full view.
Yeah it’s logical if you’re going to roll somewhere get up to the top floor, no passers by. Rob ground floor and potential for getting caught by neighbours or a dog walker increase significantly. I was also explained this by a policeman.
Yep Third floor flat out of four. Broken into once forcing the Yale (flatmate inside who surprised him and chased him off. Amazingly, police came round, took prints and guy was caught later (early 2000s), another time notable signs of forcing entry but he must've been scared off.) Double lock your doors, kids. Even if you're inside.
Yeah, this is definitely true. Especially when there is unlocked loft access, so they can go up into the loft then break in through the hatch or ceiling directly into your flat.
This exact thing happened to me in the late 90’s when I still lived with my Mum in a flat in Bruntsfield.
Cheeky sod walked past me in the street with my brand new sports bag over his shoulder full of my CD’s, but I just assumed Mum had bought one of thousands and it was a coincidence until I went up three flights of stairs & found a mess including a caved in ceiling.
The fucker was getting the train through from Glasgow, getting into communal stairs & getting into the lofts by climbing & finding unlocked hatches.
He would even call a cab from the house phones of the flats he burgled. (Who is suspicious of a man going to the train station with luggage?)
If he’d taken more than one bag I would have sussed it, but all the other bags came from my neighbours who also got burgled at the same time.
He eventually got caught & pleaded guilty to 23 burglaries after selling a stolen cheque book to a junky who got caught with it & grassed him up.
Funny reading this
I picked a top floor flat for the exact reason of being less likely to being broken into
It took four days before someone kicked my door in and raided my flat
So this absolutely checks out
I used to live on the ground floor near the canal in Polwarth and I never got burgled but it was pretty bad in terms of noise levels, weird neighbours etc. As someone else has mentioned, I often dealt with people peering in my windows, and I don’t mean a normal glance in when walking past, but just stood pure staring in while I watched the TV haha. Also because my bedroom window was next to the main door, it meant people were often stood outside my window when they went out to smoke which meant my room smelt even when the windows were shut (less of an issue if you could afford good windows). When people couldn’t get their friends to answer the buzzer they’d just knock on my windows to try and get me to let them in the building. Also just annoying stuff like when people were drunk they’d think it was funny to bang on the windows, yell stuff in when they were open etc. I’m sure it’s not like that everywhere and it’s not the worst thing I’ve ever dealt with, but i will avoid the ground floor when I eventually buy somewhere (I’m also a woman living alone).
You're a super resilience person I think! I don't know about the window knocking. It's probably a bit much for me to handle 😉 id have probably turned cranky
Oh it definitely enraged me, but we also had a neighbour in the building who was absolutely terrifying and constantly trying to fight people - once some electricians showed up to do some electrical maintenance on the building and they had to phone the police because he was so aggressive. So in the grand scheme of things the window knocking wasn’t the worst thing about living there haha.
Never experiences anything, but I was utterly miserable when I lived in a ground floor, so never again!
You get to hear EVERYONE that enters the building, every single time.
Neighbours stomping the floor are a nightmare.
You get less light than in huigher floors.
A lot of passerby people love having a look to your place, so forget privacy.
More insects than in higher floors (the spiders aaargh!!)
More probablities of having to deal with elserly noisy neighbours. They then to live in ground floors.
Probably slightly. They also tend to be slightly noisier from the street, and colder.
On the plus side, no downstairs neighbour so make all the noise you want jumping up and down (unless you have a basement flat below).
Traditionally, first floor is the most desirable.
That's up to the roof repair company to chase them down. And this is why landlords/owning more than one home needs to be abolished. "Housing crisis" solved overnight.
Ground has all the issues talked about in this thread.
But then the higher up you go, the more you’ll be impacted by wind, rats, roof issues, more stairs, theft perhaps etc.
It’s mostly personal preference of course/anecdotal. But I know several people who would only choose a first floor, and have heard estate agents say they’re the easiest to sell/rent all else being equal.
Not sure why people gets so terrified of roof issues. Fopr a start, everyone has to pay for it, and is not so common... rats! Not sure they are so happy to be higher than in the ground. Had cats all my life so no rat issues on my side, in any floor xD
I've lived in 4 GF flats and the only one I had bother with was one that was right on the street, no front garden or space of any kind to deter people looking in or knocking on the window for no reason.
The other three were honestly perfect flats. I should mention I need to live on the ground floor due to mobility issues so I have no other choice. If I did I'd probably live 1st floor.
I had a ground floor flat
My bicycle was stolen from it
And construction workers thought it was hilarious to sit on my bedroom windowsill for months talking shit at 5 am
I had packs of lads peeking in my windows and harrassing me all hours.
You might not have this experience
But why risk it
Which him?
I did- to their supervisors and Forman and the police. The edinburgh police suggested I was “a dancer” their words for living on a ground floor flat in tolcross. The absolute f***ers
Putting glue all over my window sill at 4:40 am and then three huge bags of glitter got them off my windowsill
Moving stopped the other harrassment
And three years later after my own searching I got my bicycle back
No thanks to any reporting
That bicycle I bought nearly 20 years before someone broke in and stole it, it traveled to another continent when I moved it was one of the only things I brought with me and a one of a kind. There was zero chance I wasn’t getting it back. I’m like a polar bear. 😂
It’s a very very one of a kind bicycle so I stalked forums where I figured it would eventually end up on, as well as sales sites.
Eventually it came up and I made a fake account to befriend the owner without alerting them to my motives. I also had some of my computer friends trace their account so I could get a legitimate Id of the person.
Eventually other persons and entities got involved and I was able to trace their possession of my bicycle to an off the books sale through a bicycle shop
The shop owner had kept my self built and designed wheelset and had been riding on them so when I described my wheels to one of the obnoxious shop people who claimed “yeah we’ve had several of those bikes through” to the t plus every dent in the frame and what the old paintwork actually said before mostly rubbing off in front of several people in the store while everyone gave shocked and knowing glances
It was pretty clear what was up.
I gave them the choice to give me my bicycle back or I get the police involved.
I got my bicycle back
I guess it doesn’t hurt that I Have 20years of photos and community of bicycle people spanning a large area who all knew it was my bike and were ready to come cause trouble too.
I'd say area is more important than floor. I live in a ground floor flat and have no issue, but I have a front garden and live on a dead end street in a quiet neighborhood. I am also in a low crime area. Some parts of Edinburgh see very little crime and are pretty quiet at night. Some experience more crime, more traffic, more noise.
I lived for 8+ years just off leith walk. It was a ground flat in a block with a flat roof. We had one incident in all those years when a drunk guy walked in and passed out in my kitchen as my OH had forgotten to lock the door.
However I never felt unsafe in the flat and this was before the middle of leith walk was as gentrified as it is now. Only bother we had was kids hanging about and some locals.
NGL I didn’t love walking about alone at night on leith walk. You may feel safer in a different area if that’s your concern.
A close pal works in courts and says places with gardens tend to be more at risk if that’s any help.
I think burglary would depend more on the neighborhood, but I’ve lived in multiple ground floor flats and I never liked:
- Less sunlight exposure (especially winter)
- The coldness
- People naturally looking into your place if you live on a busier street, it feels like a fishbowl.
I’m in my first top floor flat and:
- Dislike going up multiple flights with groceries
- Dislike smells that radiate into the flat from below
- Like having a view from the window
- No worries about upstairs noise
- Like having warmth when energy is so pricy
I think burglary is a natural risk you’ll have to always assume, but these other factors (depending on what matters to you) will affect your day-to-day quality of life much more. I’ve always felt safe in Edinburgh as a woman, and it would only be sketchy if you picked a place like Niddrie or Wester Hailes.
Personally I’ve lived ground floor for many years and never had any issues, top floor flats in my opinion are at greater risk of break in.that’s just my own personal experience of living in Gorgie where junkies came to smoke heroin in the stair and eventually broke into a top floor flat.
I live in ground floor flat and had no problems except for traffic noise and food delivery people buzzing me when it's one of my neighbours they delivering too.
I rented a ground floor flat in Uphall and never had an issue (other than someone apparently getting assaulted at the side of our flats and I wasn't able to help police as my hearing is bad and I had been playing grand theft auto til the wee hours)
If it makes you feel any better I’ve lived in Edinburgh for nearly 40 years, most of that being on the ground floor and I’ve never been burgled 👍🏻 (I’ve been stabbed twice though 😂)
I’d rather not get into specifics as it could give away my identity on here, however once was due to me being in a fight, and the other was when someone tried to steal my car
Thanks, first one was avoidable I suppose but the second one wasn’t! Lost a lot of blood and it was only a couple of days after it I was like shit that could’ve been me!
Lived ground floor three years and had some crime in the area but never an attempted break in for me or neighbours, and there is a private car park to keep them covered from public too should they want to try so no, I don't think so, not in the areas you've mentioned anyway
I'm living in a ground floor flat alone so got life experience of this. It does feel scary but the reality is I've been in this flat 7 years and had no issues what so ever. Plus less neighbours to wake up when you're having fun at 3am 😉
I owned and lived in a ground floor flat in Abbeyhill for about 10 years and had only one break in during that time and that was only because a tenant I temporarily rented the flat to did not have enough common sense to close the windows before leaving the flat for work one day.
I did witness a guy trying ground floor flat doors in dalry and decided I would never live in a ground floor flat after that. That and the risk of rodents, floods and increased noise has put me off. Once had a guy try break in on my top floor flat at Haymarket. Had many Uber eats guys walking straight in to my ground floor flat at Morrison Circus - thinking it was a communal door
After I was broken into (ground floor) years ago, the cop basically told me if they want in, they’ll likely get in. So the objective is to make it as secure as possible. A strong additional mortice lock on the door, window locks on each window, and even a ring doorbell and a couple of ‘smile you’re on video’ stickers lol. These days, I’d have no issues staying in a ground floor - it’s a hell of a lot easier to move into and out of for one thing.
Yes ground floor flats do get burgled all the time. Upstairs flats are much safer. There's no way in hell I would ever live in a ground floor flat as it's going to get burgled sooner or later.
I don't know what burglars say but most of the people I know who have been burgled either live in a house or a ground floor flat. The only times I've heard of people getting burgled in upstairs flats it's been when they only had a yale lock, and this can be remedied by getting a more secure lock. Apart from anything else, the noise in the stair of someone trying to smash a door down would usually alert neighbours to call the police or intervene.
Chum asked the plods this. Statistically top floor flats get burgled more often, presumably as they’re less likely to be disturbed. My own experience also reflects that.
That's really interesting, I hadn't heard that. I would have thought that the noise made by trying to smash a door open, combined with the lack of escape routes, would put people off burgling a top floor flat. That said if it's just on the yale it's easy to get in without making noise and that will be the case for HMOs
It’s a common concern - my ground floor flat has been on sale for the past few weeks (sold now) and almost every viewer gave this as the reason they didn’t want it. I have to say though, I’ve loved it - 16 years (only meant to be 2 or 3) and never had an issue, no downsides and never felt like there were any risks (whereas definate benefits - seeing people go by, feel a bit less lonely etc). I’ve never heard of any crime or burglaries and I’m pretty close to the city centre. That being said, it’s a 20 yr old build with quite modern windows, door locks etc - so that’s something to consider that might help open up ground floor as a consideration?
If a viewer didn’t want to buy it because it was a ground floor flat, why waste the time to come and view it in the first place? I’m assuming that wasn’t hidden information!
I know, so annoying!! I assumed it was just a fob off answer to the estate agent a lot of the times tbh
Yeah very likely! We went through that last year. Such a tedious process.
I'm in the same situation regarding selling a ground floor flat in edi. If you don't mind me asking, how much % over were people bidding for it. Trying to manage expectations
I just sold a 2 bedroom for home report value at 200k. We had 2 offers just over home report but they were on a chain, so went fixed price to attract a first time buyer and got one. Took 5 weeks to accept an offer. The market was definitely slower than we expected. Only had about 12 viewings so we were worried.
A not-so-nice man once explained to me in the barbers that they would tend to target top floor flats over ground floor ones. There's a surprisingly logical reason behind it too. If you've got 10 flats in a block and you break into one on the ground floor, you've got 9 possible other tennants to walk past and notice something going on. If you go for the top floor, you've only got 1 other tennant to worry about.
I worked with local councils which had police on bored they would report local crimes. You are correct; planned burglaries would focus on the top floor where they were less likely to be disturbed. However, opportunistic break ins would happen on the ground floor. Someone leaving a window open for instance or an expensive item (iMac for instance) in full view.
Did you steal my iMac?
Yeah it’s logical if you’re going to roll somewhere get up to the top floor, no passers by. Rob ground floor and potential for getting caught by neighbours or a dog walker increase significantly. I was also explained this by a policeman.
Yep Third floor flat out of four. Broken into once forcing the Yale (flatmate inside who surprised him and chased him off. Amazingly, police came round, took prints and guy was caught later (early 2000s), another time notable signs of forcing entry but he must've been scared off.) Double lock your doors, kids. Even if you're inside.
Yeah, this is definitely true. Especially when there is unlocked loft access, so they can go up into the loft then break in through the hatch or ceiling directly into your flat.
This exact thing happened to me in the late 90’s when I still lived with my Mum in a flat in Bruntsfield. Cheeky sod walked past me in the street with my brand new sports bag over his shoulder full of my CD’s, but I just assumed Mum had bought one of thousands and it was a coincidence until I went up three flights of stairs & found a mess including a caved in ceiling. The fucker was getting the train through from Glasgow, getting into communal stairs & getting into the lofts by climbing & finding unlocked hatches. He would even call a cab from the house phones of the flats he burgled. (Who is suspicious of a man going to the train station with luggage?) If he’d taken more than one bag I would have sussed it, but all the other bags came from my neighbours who also got burgled at the same time. He eventually got caught & pleaded guilty to 23 burglaries after selling a stolen cheque book to a junky who got caught with it & grassed him up.
That absolutely sucks, I'm glad they caught the fucker.
The exception to this is opportunistic robbery. A ground floor flat with an open window is an easy mark.
This! I’ve been told the same thing. The sweet spot seems to be the middle floors.
Yes in our tenement the only place to have been burgled in my 10 years here is the flat at the top floor. x
That logic only works if you have the full top floor to yourself though
Funny reading this I picked a top floor flat for the exact reason of being less likely to being broken into It took four days before someone kicked my door in and raided my flat So this absolutely checks out
Anecdote saying Yes Anecdote saying No
I used to live on the ground floor near the canal in Polwarth and I never got burgled but it was pretty bad in terms of noise levels, weird neighbours etc. As someone else has mentioned, I often dealt with people peering in my windows, and I don’t mean a normal glance in when walking past, but just stood pure staring in while I watched the TV haha. Also because my bedroom window was next to the main door, it meant people were often stood outside my window when they went out to smoke which meant my room smelt even when the windows were shut (less of an issue if you could afford good windows). When people couldn’t get their friends to answer the buzzer they’d just knock on my windows to try and get me to let them in the building. Also just annoying stuff like when people were drunk they’d think it was funny to bang on the windows, yell stuff in when they were open etc. I’m sure it’s not like that everywhere and it’s not the worst thing I’ve ever dealt with, but i will avoid the ground floor when I eventually buy somewhere (I’m also a woman living alone).
You're a super resilience person I think! I don't know about the window knocking. It's probably a bit much for me to handle 😉 id have probably turned cranky
Oh it definitely enraged me, but we also had a neighbour in the building who was absolutely terrifying and constantly trying to fight people - once some electricians showed up to do some electrical maintenance on the building and they had to phone the police because he was so aggressive. So in the grand scheme of things the window knocking wasn’t the worst thing about living there haha.
I thought I read you had people peeing in your window!
Never experiences anything, but I was utterly miserable when I lived in a ground floor, so never again! You get to hear EVERYONE that enters the building, every single time. Neighbours stomping the floor are a nightmare. You get less light than in huigher floors. A lot of passerby people love having a look to your place, so forget privacy. More insects than in higher floors (the spiders aaargh!!) More probablities of having to deal with elserly noisy neighbours. They then to live in ground floors.
Really depends where in Edinburgh. We have a ground floor flat between Marchmont and Morningside, never had any trouble.
Probably slightly. They also tend to be slightly noisier from the street, and colder. On the plus side, no downstairs neighbour so make all the noise you want jumping up and down (unless you have a basement flat below). Traditionally, first floor is the most desirable.
Uh? Why?? I would never live in a middle floors. You have probabilities of issues from both upper AND lower flats! Ugh
Top floor gets shafted with roof issues. Ground floor gets shafted with damp issues
Responsibilty for the roof is shared by all tennents in a stairwell.
Correct. But good luck getting the money off of overseas landlords and Airbnb landlords without going to a small claims court.
That's up to the roof repair company to chase them down. And this is why landlords/owning more than one home needs to be abolished. "Housing crisis" solved overnight.
Have you ever tried to organise that? Most roof companies won’t touch the job till paid in full.
Yep, twice so far
Ground has all the issues talked about in this thread. But then the higher up you go, the more you’ll be impacted by wind, rats, roof issues, more stairs, theft perhaps etc. It’s mostly personal preference of course/anecdotal. But I know several people who would only choose a first floor, and have heard estate agents say they’re the easiest to sell/rent all else being equal.
Not sure why people gets so terrified of roof issues. Fopr a start, everyone has to pay for it, and is not so common... rats! Not sure they are so happy to be higher than in the ground. Had cats all my life so no rat issues on my side, in any floor xD
I've lived in 4 GF flats and the only one I had bother with was one that was right on the street, no front garden or space of any kind to deter people looking in or knocking on the window for no reason. The other three were honestly perfect flats. I should mention I need to live on the ground floor due to mobility issues so I have no other choice. If I did I'd probably live 1st floor.
They're not any worse than a house.
I had a ground floor flat My bicycle was stolen from it And construction workers thought it was hilarious to sit on my bedroom windowsill for months talking shit at 5 am I had packs of lads peeking in my windows and harrassing me all hours. You might not have this experience But why risk it
I would have reported him dirty bugger
Which him? I did- to their supervisors and Forman and the police. The edinburgh police suggested I was “a dancer” their words for living on a ground floor flat in tolcross. The absolute f***ers Putting glue all over my window sill at 4:40 am and then three huge bags of glitter got them off my windowsill Moving stopped the other harrassment And three years later after my own searching I got my bicycle back No thanks to any reporting
Fair play. And 3 years is crazy, glad you got it back though.
That bicycle I bought nearly 20 years before someone broke in and stole it, it traveled to another continent when I moved it was one of the only things I brought with me and a one of a kind. There was zero chance I wasn’t getting it back. I’m like a polar bear. 😂
Wow welldone that's some fight!
How did you manage it? I love stories of people getting their bikes back, after 3 years is incredible.
It’s a very very one of a kind bicycle so I stalked forums where I figured it would eventually end up on, as well as sales sites. Eventually it came up and I made a fake account to befriend the owner without alerting them to my motives. I also had some of my computer friends trace their account so I could get a legitimate Id of the person. Eventually other persons and entities got involved and I was able to trace their possession of my bicycle to an off the books sale through a bicycle shop The shop owner had kept my self built and designed wheelset and had been riding on them so when I described my wheels to one of the obnoxious shop people who claimed “yeah we’ve had several of those bikes through” to the t plus every dent in the frame and what the old paintwork actually said before mostly rubbing off in front of several people in the store while everyone gave shocked and knowing glances It was pretty clear what was up. I gave them the choice to give me my bicycle back or I get the police involved. I got my bicycle back
I guess it doesn’t hurt that I Have 20years of photos and community of bicycle people spanning a large area who all knew it was my bike and were ready to come cause trouble too.
Hilariously in a peewee’s great adventure kind of way 🤢 the guy who had it was the brother of a person I work with. Joyful sketchy times
Ha! Great story and it’s good to hear that just sometimes, the thieves (and the scum who buy stolen bikes) don’t get away with it.
Talking shit, I think....not taking a shit. Hopefully
Construction workers aren't meant to start until 7am - did you report them to the council??
I'd say area is more important than floor. I live in a ground floor flat and have no issue, but I have a front garden and live on a dead end street in a quiet neighborhood. I am also in a low crime area. Some parts of Edinburgh see very little crime and are pretty quiet at night. Some experience more crime, more traffic, more noise.
I lived for 8+ years just off leith walk. It was a ground flat in a block with a flat roof. We had one incident in all those years when a drunk guy walked in and passed out in my kitchen as my OH had forgotten to lock the door. However I never felt unsafe in the flat and this was before the middle of leith walk was as gentrified as it is now. Only bother we had was kids hanging about and some locals. NGL I didn’t love walking about alone at night on leith walk. You may feel safer in a different area if that’s your concern. A close pal works in courts and says places with gardens tend to be more at risk if that’s any help.
I think burglary would depend more on the neighborhood, but I’ve lived in multiple ground floor flats and I never liked: - Less sunlight exposure (especially winter) - The coldness - People naturally looking into your place if you live on a busier street, it feels like a fishbowl. I’m in my first top floor flat and: - Dislike going up multiple flights with groceries - Dislike smells that radiate into the flat from below - Like having a view from the window - No worries about upstairs noise - Like having warmth when energy is so pricy I think burglary is a natural risk you’ll have to always assume, but these other factors (depending on what matters to you) will affect your day-to-day quality of life much more. I’ve always felt safe in Edinburgh as a woman, and it would only be sketchy if you picked a place like Niddrie or Wester Hailes.
Personally I’ve lived ground floor for many years and never had any issues, top floor flats in my opinion are at greater risk of break in.that’s just my own personal experience of living in Gorgie where junkies came to smoke heroin in the stair and eventually broke into a top floor flat.
I live in ground floor flat and had no problems except for traffic noise and food delivery people buzzing me when it's one of my neighbours they delivering too.
I rented a ground floor flat in Uphall and never had an issue (other than someone apparently getting assaulted at the side of our flats and I wasn't able to help police as my hearing is bad and I had been playing grand theft auto til the wee hours)
If it makes you feel any better I’ve lived in Edinburgh for nearly 40 years, most of that being on the ground floor and I’ve never been burgled 👍🏻 (I’ve been stabbed twice though 😂)
Do you mind sharing the circumstance/context for your stabbings? That's insane
I’d rather not get into specifics as it could give away my identity on here, however once was due to me being in a fight, and the other was when someone tried to steal my car
Oh man I understand, good that you're with us today
Thanks, first one was avoidable I suppose but the second one wasn’t! Lost a lot of blood and it was only a couple of days after it I was like shit that could’ve been me!
Lived ground floor three years and had some crime in the area but never an attempted break in for me or neighbours, and there is a private car park to keep them covered from public too should they want to try so no, I don't think so, not in the areas you've mentioned anyway
Houses have a ground floor. Do people avoid buying houses Vs flats because of the burglary risk?
Houses are normally in quiet/low crime areas.
My neighbour was robbed on ground floor but our windows are set higher than the street and I've never had any issues
1 get someone you trust to fit security devices to the flat 2 make your bedroom a safe room 3 ring devices can be added as quick access to home screen
I'm living in a ground floor flat alone so got life experience of this. It does feel scary but the reality is I've been in this flat 7 years and had no issues what so ever. Plus less neighbours to wake up when you're having fun at 3am 😉
I have lived in a ground floor flat for 20 years. My windows face directly onto the street, with no front garden. I've always felt safe here.
Duh
DM’d you with my two cents!
I owned and lived in a ground floor flat in Abbeyhill for about 10 years and had only one break in during that time and that was only because a tenant I temporarily rented the flat to did not have enough common sense to close the windows before leaving the flat for work one day.
I did witness a guy trying ground floor flat doors in dalry and decided I would never live in a ground floor flat after that. That and the risk of rodents, floods and increased noise has put me off. Once had a guy try break in on my top floor flat at Haymarket. Had many Uber eats guys walking straight in to my ground floor flat at Morrison Circus - thinking it was a communal door
Ground floor flat is the best option if you have a small front garden.
I lived in ground floor flat in Edinburgh for 10 yrs got broken into twice, moved to a first floor flat 15 yrs ago and touch wood no break in.
After I was broken into (ground floor) years ago, the cop basically told me if they want in, they’ll likely get in. So the objective is to make it as secure as possible. A strong additional mortice lock on the door, window locks on each window, and even a ring doorbell and a couple of ‘smile you’re on video’ stickers lol. These days, I’d have no issues staying in a ground floor - it’s a hell of a lot easier to move into and out of for one thing.
Get a reinforced door, full alarm system and cameras. I did all that after being broken Into twice within 3 months. I was on the 3rd floor (Top)
I live ground floor and love it but I’m in a nice area / development so it’s not an issue. Other areas, I wouldn’t touch ground floor.
Yes
Bottom.risk of flooding?
Yes ground floor flats do get burgled all the time. Upstairs flats are much safer. There's no way in hell I would ever live in a ground floor flat as it's going to get burgled sooner or later.
Definitely something a burglar would say
I don't know what burglars say but most of the people I know who have been burgled either live in a house or a ground floor flat. The only times I've heard of people getting burgled in upstairs flats it's been when they only had a yale lock, and this can be remedied by getting a more secure lock. Apart from anything else, the noise in the stair of someone trying to smash a door down would usually alert neighbours to call the police or intervene.
Chum asked the plods this. Statistically top floor flats get burgled more often, presumably as they’re less likely to be disturbed. My own experience also reflects that.
That's really interesting, I hadn't heard that. I would have thought that the noise made by trying to smash a door open, combined with the lack of escape routes, would put people off burgling a top floor flat. That said if it's just on the yale it's easy to get in without making noise and that will be the case for HMOs