How to Protect Your Tenants—And Yourself—From Theft and Damage
As a landlord of homes for rent in Kona (or anywhere, for that matter), you owe it to your tenants to provide a comfortable and secure living environment. Thus included in your obligations is to properly and thoroughly protect your rental property from potential criminal activity. This is particularly true if you possess rentals in crime-ridden or low-income areas, and even more so if you are renting to a family with young children. This week we discuss a few simple but effective techniques you can employ as a landlord of homes for rent in Kona to keep your tenants safe and content. By utilizing these methods, you strengthen rapport with your tenants while avoiding property damage and lawsuits.
Why Should You Secure Your Property?
A proper alarm system is, of course, essential in all homes for rent in Kona, regardless of who occupies them or where they are located. Ensuring that your home has an installed, fully operating alarm system is the first step to protecting your tenants. But there are a few reasons that rental properties may require further safety measures to achieve complete security.
Firstly, rental properties tend to change hands frequently. It is not uncommon for homes for rent in Kona to receive new tenants every year or two. This fact is even more true in locations with an unstable economy or those located near college campuses. That means that tenants may not possess the same neighborly relationships that a suburban homeowner might. Tenants lack of familiarity with the people and places surrounding your property leave them more vulnerable to theft.
Secondly, renters tend to possess lower incomes than homeowners. By extension, many rental properties reside in low-income areas, which are often more dangerous than America’s utopian suburbia. Thus, not only are tenants more vulnerable to crime due to their tenuous community status; but there tends to be more crime to be vulnerable to in the first place.
Finally, you want to protect yourself. Failing to adequately protect your property can downgrade it from an investment to a massive financial loss in the event of a break in. Preventing criminal activity on your property will prevent the losses in time and money that an ensuing lawsuit is bound to create. It will also prevent expensive damages on the property, such as broken locks or windows. So, how can you effectively protect your homes for rent in Kona?
Method One: Motion-Censored Lights
Installing motion-censored lights is a relatively simple and inexpensive way to deter criminal activity on your property. Motion censored lights don’t only deter approaching criminals; they can also alert sleeping tenants to the presence of a criminal outside of their home. You can invest in motion-censored lights on Amazon for less than $50.
Method Two: Cameras
If a motion-censored light isn’t enough to deter a potential break-in, a visible camera surely is. And even if the camera doesn’t deter criminal activity, it can prove handy in identifying the criminal and pursuing legal proceedings. Though camera systems can be expensive—up to a couple hundred dollars—they are a one-time investment, and well worth it. Distributed over several years of ownership and accounting for expenses prevented, a security camera is a wise investment. And even if you cant afford a real camera system, a cheap, fake camera can go a long way in deterring criminal activity.
Method Three: Make Locks Safe
When it comes to locks, there are two things you will need to ensure as landlord of homes for rent in Kona. The first is that you have access to a spare set of keys should the need for you to enter the property arise. This is useful not only for security purposes, but also if you experience tenant lockout or need to fix something while a tenant is away. Just be sure to clarify in your lease, as part of your agreement, that you reserve the right to hold a spare set of keys.
The second is that you change the locks when you obtain a new tenant. If you have a positive relationship with a previous tenant that returns all keys, this may not be necessary. Indeed, it may not be worth your time or money if all of the proper keys are returned. But if a prior tenant “loses” a key, it is best to replace the entire lock system after he or she moves out. This is particularly essential if said tenant displayed questionable behaviors, flakiness, or dishonesty. Whether or not a lock change is necessary largely depends upon the circumstances existing prior to an old tenant’s departure.
Method Four: Secure Potential Entry Points
Burglars can find some pretty creative ways to enter homes. However, most simply enter through a door or window. Ensuring that all windows and doors can be effectively locked is a must before signing a new tenant. But securing doors and windows is not just a matter of checking locks. Criminals may slide their hand through a mail slot to unlock the front door or shatter a weak window to unlock and open it. If your windows are cracked or you have a mail slot, consider replacing the windows and buying a mailbox. Laminated glass makes for a much safer window. Again, while these investments may be costly, the money and hassle they can save is invaluable.