In many areas across the country, apartment complexes are faced with especially challenging security demands. This is not to say that apartment living is a higher-risk choice than living in single-family homes, but the nature of many apartment buildings can lend them to difficult security requirements.
While the traditional approaches to residential security still have a place and are required, they are not always enough.
Apartment Complex Security Measures to Maintain
Building owners and property managers have been implementing various security measures – and to varying degrees of success – for decades. And there is a good reason for this.
Multi-family and apartment complex owners and property managers are tasked with the safety and security of their tenants. In fact, in some communities, legal precedence has been established that can make property owners liable for certain harm or damage resulting from criminal activity on their property.
Maintaining an acceptable level of security is difficult for any size complex. However, the larger the apartment building, the more extensive and complicated security becomes.
Another aspect of this challenge is that the more people there are to keep safe and secure, and the more people moving on and off your property, the more complex security processes and tactics are required.
Some of the apartment complex measures that can be implemented include:
- Exterior lighting
- Secure parking areas/garages
- Courtesy patrol
- Window locks and guards
- Electronic locks
- Emergency door alarms
- Landscaping upkeep
- Secure fencing and gates
- Secure elevator access
- Emergency phones in parking garages
While all of these are good measures, and many of them are absolutely essential – such as window locks and good exterior lighting – any or all of these can fall short in the face of a determined individual bent on committing a crime.
Except for the possibility of a particularly vigilant on-site security patrol, or a good neighbor intervening, there is little to deter someone from breaking and entering, for example, or breaking into vehicles.
What is needed is something more, something that is on 24/7, and something that can be placed beyond the reach of potential criminal elements.
Surveillance Security Video Systems – Above and Beyond Gates and Locks
One major security approach that we did not include in the previous list is security video.
But It is a given that most, if not all, apartments and other multi-family properties should be equipped with an adequate security camera system. This involves two considerations:
- Knowing what constitutes an “adequate” system.
- Recognizing that video cameras mean more than security.
An adequate security camera system is one that is a comprehensive system of video cameras that provide a strong sense of safety for residents, and a strong deterrent for others. Along with the necessary security functions, obtaining a digital visual record of events can be needed for a variety of liability reasons.
As we’ve noted here already, having visible cameras installed throughout an apartment complex can serve as a passive deterrent to potential criminal activity. Passive because they are fixed equipment that simply capture video footage that can be used for identifying and possibly apprehending a perpetrator.
While quite a bit more costly, apartment complex security solutions can include live security personnel in some capacity along with surveillance cameras. This could be as comprehensive as having on-site, uniformed guards posted at key locations throughout a complex, 24/7 to simply having a periodic courtesy patrol from a mobile security service during the nighttime hours.
Having on-site security personnel or courtesy patrols can provide certain levels of live security and can certainly be helpful, especially when combined with the 24/7 presence of video cameras covering all essential areas
That’s because on-site human security resources have significant limitations.
Unlike human beings in uniform, video cameras never sleep, don’t have to take breaks, can usually see in the dark, and are not threatened by armed intruders nor can they be outnumbered. And, while a security presence can serve as a deterrent, video cameras can’t be avoided or fooled when they are installed and located properly.
However, sometimes even a video camera presence can fall short of real deterrence.
What is really needed is a video surveillance system that can not only watch and monitor in real-time but has the capability to engage with individuals when needed.
And Blue Eye can provide you with such a system.
Your Ultimate Apartment Complex Security Solution
Blue Eye can integrate your existing video camera system with our proprietary smart security solution. Our AI “blackbox” technology allows your surveillance video camera system to distinguish a person from an animal, for example. In addition, our system’s alert feature isn’t triggered by non-human-made motion such as wind-blown tree branches.
In addition to “stealth” barrier detection, it also provides an advanced, on-board speaker technology that is accessible in real-time by our highly trained Video Surveillance Technicians (VSTs) to issue audio warnings. This allows us to engage and interact in real-time with unwanted visitors to deter them from their course of action.
The bottom line is that Blue Eye offers the optimal security system solution for your apartment complex.
Our remote video surveillance service costs about 50 percent less than a security guard service and can cover multiple parts of a site at the same time, often from vantage points that aren’t easily accessible to courtesy patrols or uniformed security guards.
Blue Eye can provide you with a solution that provides just that – and we can do so at a surprisingly affordable price. Our solution is an AI-empowered managed service platform that requires no up-front capital costs.
Give us a call at 855.258.3662 or email us at [email protected]. Let us design an effective solution for your business!