Unfortunately, this time of year is a big one for theft. Around the holidays, more people than ever find that their packages, mail, and other belongings have vanished from their property. Whether you have tenants whose offices may be in danger of being broken into or residents whose packages are going missing, you should do all you can to prevent burglaries on your property.
Tips to Prevent Burglaries on Your Property
The safety of your tenants or residents should always be the top priority for you and your team. Particularly in a season where there is a lot of mail and there are deliveries coming in every other day, there need to be extra measures taken to ensure that everything that can be done is done. Those who are renting from you like to feel as if they are safe in your hands, so to speak, and they may consider a move if they don’t feel this way.
“A burglary occurs in the United States every 18 seconds, costing nearly $4 billion in property loss every year.” This is not a number to sneeze at. If you have had incidents on your property in the past, particularly around the holidays, the people on it may be anxious about the upcoming season. The last thing you should want is for your renters to lose trust in you, or in your ability to provide them with a happy and secure work or home life, so take some steps now to reinforce that trust… and the security you offer.
One of the best ways to prevent burglaries is to “be well-informed.” That sounds a little vague, but what it means is that you should “[familiarize] your tenants with common security mistakes to avoid,” such as leaving doors or windows unlocked, particularly on lower levels. It also means making sure that your security is up to code, with doormen or guards keeping alert, not allowing entrance by unknown persons, and so on. Cameras should be totally functional, if they aren’t already, and you should consider an alarm system for the building (again, unless there is already one in place).
It’s fairly common knowledge these days, but make sure everyone is aware that most of these crimes occur during the daytime, not at night when everyone is gone. Most criminals look for opportunities when the resident isn’t present, so they look for signs of that, such as lights being off inside. Particularly for those on lower floors, encourage renters to hang blinds or shades that prevent view from the outside so that there isn’t an obvious lack of people if someone were to peer in.
How can you better prevent burglaries once you’ve taken some of the above steps? Again, it involves knowing some of the related statistics, including “common mistakes” made by people that lead to an increased risk of break-ins and theft. These include: weak/cheap locks, not regularly emptying mailboxes, non-functional alarms, badly-hidden keys, and more. To put it simply, a lot of incidents take place because of an inattention to security measures that already exist. The best thing you can do right now is to review them and check to see if they are all still secure and functional.
Preventative measures are your best friend. Write a seasonal alert to tenants to make sure they haven’t hidden keys, that their valuables are either taken home or secured in, say, a safe, and that all entrances and exits (including windows) are locked tight, whether it’s overnight or over a week’s vacation. Stress that you are taking your own measures to ensure that they and their units will be protected from break-ins and theft whether they are present or not.
Something to consider is doing a kind of walk-through of a mock-invasion. Enter into each unit and see if you can easily locate money, keys, and other valuables. It wouldn’t take much time and it might be eye-opening for both you and renters to prove how easy it is to do so (or, ideally, how they have been doing a good job in your efforts to prevent burglaries in their spaces).
You should work to take care of those renting on your property. In the meantime, let SKYLINE Property Management and Accounting Software take care of you. This system makes it easier than ever to increase the performance of your property and please your customers without you doing much work at all. SKYLINE takes the worry and the hassle out of property management work. With an option like this, why would do do things any other way?