Opportunity. This is what trespassers look for. Easy entry points that led to common areas on your apartment community’s property or inside the apartment building itself. Once trespassers gain entry, it’s easy to mill around the property to steal, vandalize, loiter and participate in other unwanted behaviors.
Apartment communities are busy places, with people coming and going at all hours. If seen by residents or staff, they may not be suspicious of trespassers or thieves but rather, misidentify them as residents or people who belong at their community.
This video shows how Stealth helped deter two individuals from theft within one of this apartment community’s common areas.
At about 4:20 a.m., an individual entered an apartment building’s bike room and tampered with an air compressor hose. Another individual entered the camera’s view. All was seen by one of our highly trained Stealth security operators who kept watch as the two entered the community’s kayak room and contacted local police dispatch to report this suspicious event.
The pair attempted to access some lockers inside the kayak room while police officers arrived on property and entered through the parking garage.
The trespassers retrieved some items from the lockers, including a large duffle-type bag that one of the individuals swung onto his shoulder. The other trespasser then retrieved a bag for himself. Both exited the kayak room and into the parking garage where officers were waiting.
Officers intercepted the suspects, handcuffed and arrested them. Local police requested video of this event and Stealth provided.
Common Strategy Can Help Fill Units, But Also, Inadvertently Invite Unwanted Visitors
One of the top goals for apartment owners and managers is to keep their units as full as possible. When a unit becomes available to rent or if an apartment community is looking to promote their property, a typical practice is to advertise their unique common areas. This speaks directly to potential residents who may have an interest in a particular common area provided and persuade them to rent at that community.
This information is usually readily available on apartment community websites, brochures, social media and other marketing avenues. While meant for potential residents, trespassers, thieves, loiterers and other unwanted individuals can also easily obtain details about your property. They can learn where on your property common areas are located, how they’re accessed – by keypad, biometrics, etc., and potentially other pertinent details about these areas that would simplify their harmful plans.
In the video above, it’s unknown whether these trespassers knew ahead of time where the bicycle and kayak room were located on the property. Maybe they just happened onto it. Potentially they did their homework prior to trespassing. If so, did they know that the kayak room had storage lockers? No matter their prior knowledge or intent to trespass, Stealth’s proactive, preventative, live video surveillance security solution helped to stop them.
Our solution begins with high-definition cameras manufactured from trusted companies. These are installed at critical locations on your property and aimed at locations that could be potential problem areas. Our customized solution works in real time. Events are captured as they happen using advanced video analytics and human intelligence.
As soon as a suspicious event is identified, our highly trained security operators take over, executing pre-established protocols to help deter the event. Our operators can sound on-site speaker warnings, contact on-call employees and call police dispatch to report a video-verified, in progress event. Often, police officers arrive on scene within minutes to help alleviate the event.
Contact our multifamily security specialists to discuss hardening and protecting areas of your property that offer opportunities to trespassers, thieves and other unwanted individuals. Our live video monitoring solution offers the highest possible level of security usually at 25-60% less than traditional security solutions.
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