Has any of this happened at your property?
In the first video, two individuals entered an apartment laundry room and went to sleep on top of the washers. Our Stealth security operator contacted the on-site guard. After investigating the situation, the guard called police. Officers arrived at the property and arrested the suspects.
In the second video, an individual climbed through the window of an apartment laundry room around 2:20 a.m. He then opened the door, walked outside and placed the screen back on the window. A trained ECAM security operator was watching and contacted police. Officers arrived minutes later and arrested the suspect.
Three Reasons Why You Need to Make Laundry Room Safety a Priority
Vandalism, theft and loitering are major concerns for multifamily residential laundry rooms, especially if they aren’t well secured. Not to mention, they can be havens for liability issues like slips and falls, as well as other injuries.
Here are three reasons why you should keep them as safe as possible:
1. Avoid Liability Issues
As previously mentioned, accidents and injuries can occur in laundry rooms, especially with other residents and children. These have the potential to become liability issues for property managers if the victims claim proper action wasn’t taken to prevent the accident.
2. Help Keep Current Residents and Attract New Ones
Safety
is one of the top two considerations of potential renters when choosing a place to live. It’s second only to affordability. If residents feel unsafe at your property, they won’t want to live there, and potential residents won’t want to move in. Properly securing common areas like laundry rooms, mailboxes, fitness centers and parking lots can help make your property stand out.
3. Protect Equipment
Property owners spend a lot of money on high-quality washers and dryers. The last thing you want is for someone to damage or vandalize your investment. Video surveillance cameras can help protect your valuable equipment by deterring thieves and vandals. In addition, recorded video can be used to investigate any incidents.
How to Help Secure Your Laundry Room
A safe and secure laundry room can help keep residents happy. When residents are happy, they are less likely to move out, which means greater retention rates for you.
What can you do to help enhance your security measures? Here are 6 tips:
- Secure entrances to help keep non-residents out
- Make sure the room is well-lit
- Keep any chemicals locked up and out of reach
- Maintain a clean environment to help reduce the risk of injuries
- Post rules for using the laundry room, including a contact number
- Install live-monitored surveillance cameras – more on that next
Clean Up Your Act with Live Video Monitoring
Many multifamily residential communities hire security guards to watch their properties. While having human presence on-site has its benefits, it isn’t always the best solution. Guards are expensive and can’t be everywhere. They can only see what’s in front of them. Live video monitoring is a more effective alternative. Trained security operators monitor cameras in real time to watch for suspicious activity. If they see something, they can act immediately.
As you saw in the first video, our operators contacted the on-site guard to alert them there were loiterers in the laundry room. In the second video, our monitoring operator contacted the police directly. In both cases, the suspects were arrested while they were still on the property.
In addition to deterring live crime, ECAM offers many added benefits, such as:
- Video Review and Analysis – Our dedicated review team can search through hours of video footage to investigate any issues you may have.
- Access Control – Gives you control over who enters your property and lets you better manager activity
- Remote Maintenance – We can often identify, diagnose and repair technical problems remotely
- IT Services for Remote Support – Stealth’s IT staff is on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Keeping your laundry room and other common areas safe from criminal activity is a must for property owners and managers. Live video surveillance can be an effective solution to help keep out unwanted visitors which can help drive up tenant retention and in turn, your bottom line.
For more information about our proactive security solutions for multifamily residential properties, contact us.
