Lloyd had been 18 years in the security industry when she started her own firm, Minneapolis-based Lloyd Security, in 2003. After 9/11, she’d noticed a shift, from customers wanting alarms in case of fire, frozen pipes, or break-ins while they were gone to wanting surveillance systems for monitoring what was going on outside.
Then about three years ago, Lloyd says, there was another shift: Customers “became much more concerned about people breaking into their homes when they were there versus when they were away.” (Lloyd sees a connection between this and a rise in meth-related violent crime.) “It’s gone from 25 percent of our clientele being concerned about personal security to 85 percent.” Last year, a customer asked Lloyd if she could install a “saferoom,” a bullet-resistant space similar to the one in the 2002 film Panic Room.
“Once we did it, I realized this is something that a lot of people do want,” Lloyd says. She’s done 10 installations in Twin Cities area homes since then, putting in bullet-resistant walls, floors, ceilings, and doors and a password-protected entry system. The cost: $75,000 to $150,000 for a closet-sized room.
“People are more afraid than they were 10 years ago,” Lloyd says. One client who has a saferoom at home is looking into installing one at work—in the boardroom."
