They pay their rent but could have a meth lab. What should a storage operator do?

Ross_Lampe

Exploding Methamphetamine lab sparked storage unit fire in Summit Township
http://fav-meth-head-of-the-day.com/2017/02/21/exploding-methamphetamine-lab-sparked-storage-unit-fire-in-summit-township/

craigbell

Call Police and have them bring out a drug sniffing dog.

DerekBrett

Evict. all our tenants sign agreements agreeing not to break the law while in the facility. if we suspect them of violating the agreement by storing something they're not supposed to, we can arrange a time to search their unit with them present.

sanzel

Admittedly, we are in a area that has historically been rather quiet, although the climate is beginning to change.  There are about 8 competitors within 5 miles of our facility and none of us have had much in the way of illegal activity to date.  Over the past couple years the area has started experiencing break-ins and the occasional customer that wants to take up residency in their unit.  For those of you who are more experienced with the criminally inclined, could you share some tips?  What should we look for that may clue us in on the bad guys? Odors? Frequent visits at odd times? Multiple people on property with tenant???  Thanks for sharing.

AZStorageGuy

Crime Free Lease Addendum--"Occupant... shall not engage in criminal activity on or near the said premises"..."includes... 'drug-related' criminal activity... means the illegal manufacture, sale, distribution, use, or possession... of a controlled substance (as defined in Section 12 of the Controlled Substance Act [21 U.S.C. 802])."

More verbiage to that effect throughout the addendum we use, referring to Occupant, guest of the Occupant, "or any other person with authorized access to the storage unit."

All of our tenants must sign it at time of rental.

Ron

When the tenant is on site, visit them at their unit. They do not sign an agreement for privacy. If it is questionable, let them know you no longer want to continue the tenant-landlord relationship, (sounds nicer than "get the hell out"). Let them know the orange door company has vacancies.

Orkocean

These were things I used more for audits and finding units with customer locks but not rented in the system but I have used them for checking on units in question before. If you have a smart watch and there is a gap allowing you to stick your hand over the door and up into the unit inbetween the frame of the building I have used the watch/phone combo as a live camera to look around in the unit to see what's going on *actually caught a manager renting a unit off the books to his friend to storing a dune buggy this way*. I also got a endoscope that connects via wifi to my phone so use on units when space is limited to get a view in. This has helped on numerous issues, especially when doors are stuck and the tenant is blaming your unit when it's actually something of theirs wedged against the door because of how they packed the unit.

Ross_Lampe

I like the endoscope idea. Does the brand you use work well? Where can I buy one?

Orkocean

Mine is definitely not high end, if I remember correctly it was $40ish on amazon but don't recall the brand. It works well enough for basics that I use it for such as seeing if there's actual items in units when customer locks are on but they're not listed in the system. If it's something close to the camera it provides a pretty good view, anything far away though and it's useless. On my phone I use the "endoscope camera" app from the app store on my phone to connect to it as it didn't have it's own specific app.

Ron

Orkocean said:

Mine is definitely not high end, if I remember correctly it was $40ish on amazon but don't recall the brand. It works well enough for basics that I use it for such as seeing if there's actual items in units when customer locks are on but they're not listed in the system. If it's something close to the camera it provides a pretty good view, anything far away though and it's useless. On my phone I use the "endoscope camera" app from the app store on my phone to connect to it as it didn't have it's own specific app.

When we find a lock on an non-rented unit, we cut the lock and examine the unit. We tried an borrowed endoscope here, but the unit was too dark for us to make out and all our inside units have swing doors with no gaps.
 

Orkocean

We always gave benefit of the doubt towards customers when we found locks on units that shouldn't be, we would overlock it for 30 days before cutting it. More of a reminder to the store manager of how could you of left a unit unlocked allowing someone to move in to a wrong unit in the first place, but it does happen. Actually just had it at a store last weekend, we found a unit with a lock on it that shouldn't of been. We did our usual, overlock it and move on. Low and behold about 2 hours later a person showed up wanting to know why they couldn't get in to their unit. We went over everything and found out it was them moving into a wrong unit, got them transferred and caught up/paying more since it was a slightly bigger unit than they originally rented.

As far as the endoscope, mine has a light I can adjust on it for brightness, without it would definitely be too dark to see in units.

JulieA

Frequent gate activity is a red flag.  We check gate activity everyday.  If suspicious we monitor the video.  Frequent activity without moving anything in or out is a bigger red flag!  I had some suspicious characters I was getting ready to evict &/or call police.  Ironically a law enforcement rented a space near the unit and had his buddies help him move all weekend!  Suspects vacated!

Ron

I just got in an endoscope off Amazon, it is 5 meters long so we should be able to see into our drive up units. Will not work for our hallways. It works great on our reloading bench for checking powder in cases and also as a bore scope for examining barrels.