Sublet with a mamad: how to check the safe room before you book

A mamad (merhav mugan dirati, a residential protected space) is a room inside the apartment, built as a single piece of reinforced concrete with walls that run down to the building's foundations. The Home Front Command calls it the best protected space because it combines a high level of protection with availability: it's inside your home, so you can get in at once.

A mamak (merhav mugan komati, a floor protected space) serves several apartments on the same floor, in buildings where not every apartment has a mamad. A building shelter serves its residents, and a public shelter serves the whole neighbourhood.

In the 1991 Gulf War, Israel's home front came under long-range missile attack for the first time, and the approach to protection changed. In March 1992 an amendment to the Civil Defense (Specifications for Building Shelters) Regulations was published, making a residential or floor protected space the protection that new residential buildings must include.

Hence a rule of thumb: a building put up before the mid-1990s probably wasn't designed with a mamad, while a newer one should have a mamad in the apartment or a mamak on the floor. Some older buildings have had a mamad added in a renovation, so ask the host what year the building went up and whether a protected space has been added since.

The Home Front Command sets a time to reach shelter for every locality: how long you have from the alert until you need to be inside a protected space. Across Israel it ranges from immediate to a minute and a half, and the siren lasts exactly that long. In every alert zone of Tel Aviv–Yafo and of Jerusalem, the time is 90 seconds.

Both cities are split into several alert zones, so when you check on the Home Front Command's website, enter the street name too. When you move in, install the Home Front Command app, make sure location services are on, and add the apartment's area to your areas of interest.

Ninety seconds pass quickly when the shelter is at the end of the street, so walk the route once on a quiet day, with a timer. And if the siren ends before you get there, the instruction is to lie on the ground and protect your head with your hands.

A mamad and a mamak top the Home Front Command's list. Without them, the next choice is a shared shelter in the building, then a public space — a public shelter, a standard protected space in a school or community centre, or a public shelter approved by the Home Front Command. Check with the local authority in advance where a public space is and whether it has been opened. An underground car park the Home Front Command hasn't approved is not a protected space.

Only when there's no public space nearby, or it hasn't been opened, do you move to what the guidelines call “a good space in the middle”. The first option is an inner stairwell with no windows and no exterior walls. In a building of more than three floors, stay in a flight of stairs with at least two floors above it; in a building of fewer than three floors, in the middle floor's flight, and never on the entrance floor.

No stairwell like that? Choose the innermost space in the apartment, with as many walls and as few windows and openings as possible. An inner hallway works too. Sit against an interior wall, below window level and not facing the door. Kitchens, showers and toilets are unsuitable, because glass and ceramics can shatter.

Ask directly: is there a mamad inside the apartment, a mamak on the floor, or is the nearest protected space a shelter? And ask for a photo of the mamad's door and window. A thick steel door and a steel window look nothing like an ordinary room, and one photo saves a lot of guessing.

A mamad used as a bedroom is common, but one that has become a storeroom needs clearing. The Home Front Command advises removing anything that could shatter or catch fire from the protected space, and keeping the way to it clear. On your first day, check that the door seals fully when you turn the handle 90 degrees, and that the window closes tightly.

No mamad and no mamak? Ask where the shelter is, whether it's open or locked and who holds the key. You can find the nearest public shelter yourself: the Tel Aviv–Yafo municipality website has a shelter finder by address and on a map, and the Jerusalem municipality publishes a list of public shelters by neighbourhood and address.

When hosts list an apartment on Home Sublet, they can tick “Safe room (mamad)” among its features. On the search page, open “Filters” and under “What's inside” tick “Safe room (mamad)”. Only apartments whose hosts ticked it remain.

The tick is the host's statement, and Home Sublet doesn't check it on site, so even after filtering, get a photo before you send a booking request. Rent and deposit go to the host directly, at the key handover, and renters pay no fees.