Secure Strategies for Enhancing Your Apartment Safety
Securing Your Apartment: A Guide to Deter Burglars
Living in an apartment doesn't mean compromising on safety. To secure your apartment and deter burglars, it's essential to combine building security features with personal safety measures.
Ensure Secure Entry Points
Always lock doors and windows and use deadbolts and peepholes if available. Control access to communal entrances with key card systems or security gates, which restrict unauthorized entry.
Install Security Devices
Use security cameras, motion sensors, and alarm systems to monitor your apartment and alert you of unusual activity. Smart home technology can enable remote locking and real-time notifications, increasing your control and awareness of the environment.
Be Aware of Your Surroundings
Stay alert in shared areas like hallways, parking lots, and nearby streets. Watch for dim lighting or suspicious behavior, and avoid sharing apartment details publicly.
Meet Neighbors and Build Community
Establishing good relationships with neighbors can provide informal surveillance and prompt warning of suspicious activity. Befriending your neighbours can help deter burglars and can help you keep in touch with each other and watch out for each other, especially in an apartment building where a neighbour who notices strange activity around your apartment and notifies you may save you from an attempted break-in.
Enhance Door Security Indoors
Consider portable door locks for additional protection inside your apartment, especially on bedrooms or rooms with valuables. These can add security independently of landlord-provided locks and are affordable and easy to install.
Know Your Legal Rights and Landlord Responsibilities
Check your local laws to confirm required security features landlords must provide and demand compliance or install additional protections yourself if necessary.
Communal Security Measures
Entrances, including gates and car parks, should ideally be monitored by surveillance cameras or on-site security staff. All doors and windows in the apartment should close securely with locks. The building's access control method should be considered, with options including regular keys, swipe cards, key codes, or smart locks.
Additional Tips
- Don't prop the complex's external entry doors open for convenience.
- Never unlock the apartment entrance remotely and let postal workers or food delivery drivers into the building.
- All entrances and common areas, such as the foyer, stairwells, hallways, carparks, waste management areas, laundry room, storage rooms, should have good lighting.
- Setting up an online community, such as a WhatsApp group or private Facebook group, can help residents keep in touch and watch out for each other in an apartment building.
The Importance of Community
Strong communities are safe communities, according to Neighbourhood Watch Victoria CEO Bambi Gordon. She emphasizes the importance of getting to know neighbors, reporting suspicious activity, and respecting shared spaces in apartment buildings.
Insurance Coverage
If your apartment is burgled, having contents insurance (if you own the apartment) or renters insurance (if you rent the apartment) could provide peace of mind. RACV Contents Insurance and RACV Renters Insurance both provide cover for things stolen during a break-in, or damage caused by an attempted theft, and cover up to $500 of visitors' belongings stolen during a break-in, plus up to $1,000 for any money spent by a thief who takes your credit card and uses it without your consent.
Legal Considerations
Renters are allowed to have the locks changed on their apartment doors, but they should get the rental provider's permission first. Tenants leasing a property will need to seek permission from their rental provider for installations of smart video doorbells. Renters are also allowed to store valuables in a home safe, and they are allowed to have the locks changed on their apartment doors, but they should get the rental provider's permission first.
Mail Theft Prevention
Mail theft is a common problem in apartment buildings, so it's important to never leave keys in a mailbox and to consider locking the mailbox with a heavy-duty padlock or disc lock.
By integrating secure building access, personal security devices, vigilant habits, and community awareness, you significantly reduce the risk of burglary in apartments.
