If it weren't so serious, it would be laughable

I was leaving the garage last night when I noticed this (see picture below). The door was open again! Why is it so hard to keep the garage area secured?

Residents of The Crescent at Fells Point (a luxury apartment complex managed by Metric Property Management) have had many issues with management over the lack of security in the building. So many that I'm getting sick and tired of writing about them, but someone need to hold their feet to the fire.

In fact a week or two ago the same pedestrian door was pried open as someone forced their way into the garage. No, management did not inform the residents of this break-in, but we thought that you should know.

Here is the step-by-step account of what happened:

1. Saturday 07/21/2007, around 7pm - A concerned resident found the pedestrian door to the garage pried open and took the picture above (click on the imageto view larger). In other words: we had a break-in at The Crescent garage.
   
2. He immediately reported the incident to the courtesy patrol officer on duty.
   
3. The officer (who had just come on duty at 6pm) looked in his log book and told the resident that the pried lock had been noted by someone on the previous shift. As this was Saturday evening, the "last shift" would have been the Fri-Sat overnight shift. Management from The Crescent were in the office from 10am to 6pm (albeit intermittently, which is a security issue for another blog post of its own) on Saturday, indicating that they either a) did not read the note in the log book or b) were aware of the broken lock and did not fix the problem.
   
4. The resident then sent an "emergency maintenance request" via the web site where he was relieved to read that someone would contact him within the hour.
   
5. An hour passed and with still no contact from maintenance, the resident calls to report the matter (luckily no one was hurt and nothing was stolen or vandalized during this hour).
   
6. Shortly thereafter a maintenance person showed up to fix the problem.
   
7. Maintenance secures the door with plastic zip-ties (see picture to right) and put a sign on the door that read "Gate closed until Monday, sorry".

Questions for management:

1. If the break-in was on the security log books early Saturday morning, why wasn't it corrected by Crescent management during the day?
   
2. Do you think that someone who broke in earlier by prying open a steel door would be deterred by a plastic zip-tie and handwritten sign? The pool area is more heavily secured from it's own residents using a steel cable and padlock.
   
3. Management has proudly announced that stronger springs were put on the door so that it closes, but the problem of open and tampered locks remains? How many bikes need to be stolen, cars vandalized or heaven forbid someone mugged or raped and how little common sense do you need to realize that the garage entry is so conveniently located down a quiet, recessed driveway with no foot traffic that this door is a serious target for crime? Once you realize this, what are you going to do about this security risk?
   
4. Did you report this break-in to the police and did you give them a copy of the security video from the camera monitoring the area?

Sure, residents should take responsiblility for making sure the door closes behind them and if we leave it open, we are to blame. But I'm guessing that it wasn't a resident who pried open the lock and it isn't always a resident who has left the door open (employees use this door too and need to use the same care). After all, our front doors are open all day (unmonitored) allowing anyone to stroll in and go through to the building and garage. Furthermore, there IS crash door technology that residents, employees and criminals can't leave open.

But more importantly, we need true 24 hour security. You know, the kind you find at other luxury apartment complexes where front doors are always locked and they take security seriously. We need more than one courtesy patrol on duty: one patrolling the grounds and one at the front door at all times. We need effective video surveillance of entryways. Even if a resident, employee or ne'er-do-well leave that door open, patrols and video would help prevent trespassers and thus, potential crime.

After all of this, I have to wonder - why should we need to tell management how to secure its residents? Will it take a serious crime and lawsuit against The Crescent before they respond to the security lapses?