Tenants Robbing Packages and Stealing Free Wahser & Dryer Use

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It us hard to believe that we own all C+ Grade apartment buildings and also have many tenants who steal other tenants mail, packages, rob cars, put slugs in washers and dryers, stole the entire set of 28 mail wall-mounted mail boxes and a few days ago we found a piece of a coat hanger in a clothes dryer that was being used to get the dryers to work for free.

So, I went on Amazon, purchased a surveillance camera that is also a USB charger that plugs into a wall and I installed a wall plug receptacle on the side of a light fixture on the ceiling so it was not noticeable. I could have mounted a smoke detector with a camera, but I already had order the USB charger for by employee theft surveillance. I was surprised to find the picture quality for the USB charger was super clear, in color and you can set it to motion detection.

I am going to put some decoys in the mail area and will definitely catch the thieves and the tenants jamming my washers and dryers with slugs and coat hangers and will immediately evict them. Almost every tenant I have doesn't seem like the type who would steal, but I have problems at every property with people jamming my washers and dryers with fake coins. I am always finding plastic coins in our laundry coin boxes and they work very well for the tenants. I looked into the coinless systems, but that seems like a cumbersome and expensive way to manage the washers and dryers. I don't want to have to deal with the extra equipment, monthly fees and I think every property would need an internet connection and that is more maintenance and expenses.

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Originally posted by @Linda S.:

@Account Closed,

I totally understand the frustration, but think it may be an uphill battle.   Do you have key fobs or logins, so that way you can quickly identify who uses what?     If  not-- if you find someone in a hoody, average height, average build, how are you going to identify which tenant?   If it's not super obvious, how will you prove it's them?     Have you ever thought that the people doing all the shady stuff aren't your tenants, but maybe non-residents?    

I'd definitely say do a key fob thing to block non-residents, and then after that you can do a lot of fake cameras (or real ones!)  with tons of signs.    You should absolutely send notification to all your tenants of the problems  and the new security measures-- that right there should block like 50-70% of the problems, good people don't want to get caught.

 Thank you very much for the suggestions. All our properties are fenced and enclosed with entry keypads. All our mailboxes are inside the locked area and all the laundry rooms have large doors and windows where everything inside is very visible from the outside where most of the tenants can see inside the laundry rooms from inside their apartments and not all, but the laundry rooms that are less visible from outside have iron gates where tenants need keys to get inside. I am fairly positive it is the tenants doing the stealing. A few years ago, I had some punks living in an apartment and things were stolen almost every week. They moved without being evicted and the stealing stopped. I've also had my own workers do a significant amount of stealing that included stealing rent checks from an iron locked rent deposit box.

I've been running a plumbing, heating and construction business for 50+ years and I don't think one day goes by where something is not stolen from my office, warehouse, vehicle or side job. I had 60 employees a few years ago, reduced to 20 employees and stealing is still my number one problem. If I fired everyone at my company like I am supposed to do then I would not have one employee and that is not a joke. Every time I hire a new employee it turns out that the employee is shooting up needles or has some other serious problem. 

About 5 years ago, I hired a person to be a general laborer. The following day, an employee told me that the new worker filed worker comp lawsuits against every employer and said he was going to file one against my company. A few weeks later, the employee filed a worker comp lawsuit. I could not fire him because that would be retaliation. So, I kept him working and he filed a 2nd worker comp lawsuit for another bogus injury. I recorded him with our office camera and fired him because the law says that I have to try to give him some some other type of work he could do. So, I told him I would pay him to ride around in a vehicle with another employee and he did not have to do any type of physical work. I can't remember the details, but he came into my office every morning threatening to sue me for some reason and did not want to do any type of work or riding around. So, I fired him and he filed a civil lawsuit for retaliation for $1.2 million and for civil lawsuits I have to pay an attorney with my own money and pay for any damages awarded by the court.