Alright, so I found a pretty cool drain near my house and am wanting to explore it however to get in you either have to lift up a large metal grill in an exposed area or you can get in from an entrance in the forest however the gates to the drain are locked by a nut and bolt. My question is would it be against the urbex "guidelines" to unscrew the nut to get in? Or would that be similar to picking a lock as you don't have to "break" anything to enter and it would be possible to seal up once I'm done.


Cheers, mullet

Not really sure about the ethics and all that but I'd stick to lifting up the grill.

If you go through the manhole you have to make sure you mark it. If you don't you might accidentally open the wrong one when returning, and that could be bad, especially if it opens up on a road or something. It also makes dealing with a burned out flashlight that much harder because now you got to find your mark in the dark. Then of course there's the very small possibility that someone reseals the cover with you in.

Also I'm not sure exactly how the law works but I wonder if you will get into more trouble for using tools for your trespasses. I expect it's a lot easier to prove pre-meditation if you got a tool with you.

Lifting up the grill is probably better. Even though it's exposed most people probably wont care what you do. If you're really worried about people snitching go early in the morning. Though tbh even if lots of people are around you probably would be good. Oddly enough people are less likely to report crimes when there's a higher concentration of people around. It's called the bystander effect.

You could even buy a really cheap construction vest from Canadian Tire so it looks like you are supposed to be there.

Have fun

if it can be replaced to where it sat originally then its perfectly ok

I'm probably gonna go after they get off work, so like 6:30. I'll try lifting the grill up however it's pretty big and there isn't too much room to lift it, if that doesn't work we should be able to get through a manhole entrance as they just have a piece of wood overtop if those don't work we will probably go with taking the nut and bolt off and entering that way