How do you secure your DVD library?

[dubbsstar]

Hi,

Next year I will be renovating my long held property in Cornwall. I will have a friend's mum, who will act as a caretaker/ key-holder living near-by, I also want to offer my guests access to an extensive DVD Movie collection. I will compensate the key-holder genrously, but can't expect her to check every DVD is back in it's case, and not been mixed up or indeed stolen etc.!

I thought perhaps, a pre-booking system where the guests may order, from a list, which movies they'd like made available to them, during their stay.

I wondered what solutuion other, more expereinced people on these forums, had implemented in order to secure their libaries.

oh, and is it even legal to offer such a service?

many thanks in advance.

dubbs

[Normandy Cow]

I just leave all my DVDs, videos and CDs there.

My attitude is that if anyone is sad enough to have to nick them, then they will eventually get their just desserts. "What goes round, comes around" and all that....
(Anyway, they were all bought on ebay so even if they do go walkies, I can replace them very cheaply )

In 3 years of renting, I am not aware of any of them going missing. I think most people are honest, and appreciate that we trust them and have left all our things there for people to enjoy.

If I was on holiday and had to "book out" DVDs I would find this very petty. Sorry.

(PS, welcome to the forum Dubbs! Hope you will get lots of useful info, and good luck with your new venture ).

[roxytoo]

yes I agree with Catherine, in four years of renting out of 73 DVD films I have had one missing !

[Normandy Cow]

Just to add, in fact I don't think any have gone missing, but we certainly have more than we started with! People sometimes leave them behind too!!!

[e-richard]

Yes, also take Catherine's view.
Although in the early days, we did stick little able-lable addresses on our CDs (long before DVDs) in case they inadvertantly got packed into suitcases, but in reality, none have gone missing in over 7 years. Well, none that I miss as far as I can see.

[A-two]

I agree with Catherine and others. No DVDs missing, but we did have a few kids VHS go astray, then after we found two copies of one movie, I realized people were having trouble remembering which were ours. So I put a discreet address label on each box spine and another on the disc/ tape itself, saying library copy, so guests could easily identify their own when rushing to get packed up. Problem solved.

As for providing a DVD ordering service, no thanks, I have enough to do on a changeover and it's a recipe for complaints when a movie is missed that they were really looking forward to see. I don't think your caretaker is going to welcome this extra job either. If you have any very rare movies in your collection that you can't replace, then I would remove those just in case of damage, but otherwise the risk is very small, provided they are labelled.

[Big Sis..]

Hi, Welcome Dubbs.

I agree with all of the above I have some Dvds I leave in the houses & CDs and dont think any have gone missing...dont leave any that matter to you though.

If once you start renting the only problem you have is a few missing Dvds you will have done well

[dubbsstar]

Many thanks for eveyone's responses.