What is your procedure for breakins?

Shauna

I am still new and getting the hang of storage life. Recently while checking units, I discovered a cut lock. I notified the tenant and she came to see what was missing. All she said was a few clothes and a pair of shoes, but that is all. No other units were tampered with. She also stated she got scared and had to leave because her vacuum got outside the unit somehow while she was looking through her things. I have tried reviewing cameras, but I just don't see anything. I assured her that I would keep investigating. It has been a couple weeks now, and I haven't heard anything from her. Her card declined this morning from autobilling. Anyone care to share some tips on handling this situation? Is the best answer I can truly give is "I wasn't able to see anything?" How do you usually handle breakins? I have started implementing daily walk throughs of the facility. TIA

themage

We do daily walkthroughs and random security checks throughout the day (just cruising through picking up trash and looking for obvious stuff). When break-ins do happen, we will notify the tenant and the police. We provide them with any information we have and share any relevant camera footage with the police. After that it is mostly up to them. It does happen sometimes that all we can say is "We found your lock cut, here is the police case number." It sucks, but unless you have some serious security stuff installed, I cant think of much else you can do.

Orkocean

If we find a unit with a lock missing we notify the tenant to get them to the unit asap to verify it was truly a break in versus them just forgetting to put a lock back on *happens often surprisingly*. If it truly is a break in the tenant needs to contact the police to file the report. It's their belongings so we can't file a report for them. If there is damage to our actual property then we can contact the police. Next step i'm going through gate logs for the last time they were on property to narrow down search parameters and if it's recent enough that the DVR has footage I'll start checking footage.

MegumiM

We haven't had many issues with break-ins but always have the tenant go ahead and file a police report while you check the camera footage. If there is any suspicious activity on the camera, save the footage to make it easier to pull up when the police come to investigate. It's also good to save it because most security systems only keeps footage for 1-2 weeks. Walk around the perimeter and check the fence if you have a gated facility. Suggest to the tenant changing their access code and buying a disc lock. Disc locks are more secure because you can't use bolt cutters on them.

More than likely this was someone the person has given their code out to and knows which unit is their's. If it was a random person breaking and entering you would've had more than 1 unit broken into.

Shauna

I thought it was very strange that someone went to that effort only to take a pair of inexpensive shoes and a few articles of clothing. The whole situation is very strange. Thank you for your input. Unfortunately, the person who installed our dvr said we had 30 days of footage. Well turns out it was only 5 days! I was unable to see anything on cameras before the footage was lost. I have since bought a harddrive that will give quite a bit more storage ability. I now check the whole facility every morning. There has been no issues since. I appreciate you all sharing your process for these situations.

JamesStorage

@Shauna I would recommend also getting some cameras that point at the backsides of your building. (Our outer buildings are one sided and to see the back we have to walk the outside perimeter, which is time consuming on the best of days) This will help you see if they try to come in from behind. It'll also let see you see if someone is camped out back there. I once had someone doing that, complete with tent.

Cheyenne

Our owners are retired California Highway Patrol.  We create an 'incident report' that includes-date, time, witness statements, summary of incident, and photos. We keep a copy in their file and give a copy to our customer to make it easier for them to follow up with police. 

teamcapitola

As bad as this sounds, could this tenant be trying to get a freebie or a discount?

Sometimes things just don't add up..... 

As a storage facility, we are not liable for anything (provided we're not negligent about anything) but we still want to provide a safe and secure environment. We have had tenants in the past claim to have had things taken or such, but the data just didn't back it up (no alarms, or their code was entered every time the unit was opened etc..)

The one time we actually had a break-in, we notified the tenant immediately, and helped them coordinate with the local PD and their insurance company. We provided copies of any video and the access logs etc. Everything was documented in our incident report.

CVSSSTORAGE

@teamcapitola
we had a guy who swore we were cutting his lock and putting it back on every night. I explained to him we cannot cut your lock and put it back on your unit. He said things were moved around. He said this at least 5 times and I finally had to get a lock and show him we cannot cut it and put it back together. He kept insisting to speak to the owners and when told no he said he was calling the police. I finally said sir if you think you were a victim of a crime then you need to call the police. They came out and the officer said he was just humoring the guy by listening to his story. I told the cop if he does not feel safe he can get his items and sign out of the unit because this was getting ridiculous and we would call his balance good. He got his stuff and left, I really think he just did not have the money he owed us for his last month

JamesStorage

@CVSSSTORAGE I'd take that deal if it meant getting rid of a tenant like that. We have a guy that I'm positive sleeps in his unit occasionally. Unfortunately it's not a regular occurrence or I'd have been prepared for him. I usually just make a special trip specifically to check his unit. He once stopped me and babbled about eh was sure someone was breaking into his unit, pointing at things like rivets and door track as proof. 

Drew_Scadoo

Defiantly a daily walk through is a must, I first check cameras and then gate code activity to see who has been on the property. Also never apologize you don't want to "take obligation" of any kind, there insurance people will try to trip you up on that and end up making you pay. 

teamcapitola

@CVSSTORAGE - We had a tenant who swore somebody was breaking into her unit (without harming lock or setting off alarms) .....just to place random boxes of stuff inside her unit.

She swore that a box of candles was left in her unit. Nothing was ever taken....

No amount of logic would dissuade her; GATE logs, camera video, nothing!

She finally did call the cops, who promptly cited her for possession of meth (which is not an arrestable offense here in California anymore!) She swore it was...wait for it... put inside her unit like the candles!

Orkocean

whoa... meth is not deemed worthy of arrests here? Wow, that explains a lot.

My fun ones now that I took over this new site is it seems prior employees were either doing it/in on it or just plain idiotic to miss it. Have had two reports now of people who hadn't been in their units in months coming in and stating the units have been gone thru. One I'm leaning towards a former employee and the other as a prior tenant who went over the wall to the unit next to them. The tenant and me said it must be the guy from oceans 11 to be able to get over the small gap and get items thru as well. Looking at the prior tenant who had that unit's next to them gate/door logs I saw nonstop red flags that a manager should of picked up on but never did.

ESS

Orkocean said:

whoa... meth is not deemed worthy of arrests here? Wow, that explains a lot.

A lot of Callie laws explain a lot lol. Have you seen the meme of the little girl with a straw being chased by a police officer screaming "I need it for my juice box!"?

CVSSSTORAGE

@Orkocean
look up what is considered a non violent crime now here in California it was either prop 47 or 57 no one paid attention to the law just read the title and voted for it. Now you pretty much get out of jail for just about everything here, they just site and release

Orkocean

CVSSSTORAGE said:

@Orkocean
look up what is considered a non violent crime now here in California it was either prop 47 or 57 no one paid attention to the law just read the title and voted for it. Now you pretty much get out of jail for just about everything here, they just site and release

Yeah I saw a thing the other day pop up about the county here and something about how the police can no longer arrest homeless. Didn't read into the details of it but I'm just assuming it means any homeless we catch around our property we get to deal with as police probably wont bother. Which is what we did anyways as I don't like to bother calling police out for petty stuff as I know they have bigger things to respond to, especially here in Stockton.

olivermason99

Remember mate, whenever you are in Self Storage Facility business that means you need to tighten your security because you are responsible for a huge number of valuables.