As a landlord or property manager, your job isn’t limited to just collecting rent every month. You’re also responsible for ensuring that the property under your care is a safe and secure ground for its resident dwellers.
When the property is safe, you’ll be helping your tenants live and work comfortably within the premises. This can reduce the risk of accidents and help your tenants more easily attain a high quality of life.
This doesn’t only benefit them and their quality of life, it also benefits you as you don’t have to worry about high tenant turnovers, incessant safety compliance penalties, and a strained landlord-tenant relationship.
This, in turn, can lead to a continuous and steady stream of rental income—which you can use to pay off existing mortgages, save for renovations, or utilise for future construction projects.
That said, it’s clear that every landlord should prioritise tenant safety in their repertoire of property management responsibilities. The question then becomes: how to improve tenant safety in the first place?
We got you. In this article, we’ll dive into several key approaches you should follow to keep your tenants in safe hands.
Let’s jump right into it.
- Implement Access Control Systems
As a property manager, it’s your duty to ensure that only authorised people are allowed to enter your property. While the bringing of guests is up to your discretion, newcomers should ideally be logged in and identified for security purposes.
If the property is a commercial space, use biometric identification systems like fingerprint scanners, turnstiles, and ID scanners by the entrance. This prevents unauthorised persons from entering the property and mitigates the risk of criminal activities like theft.
Furthermore, each office space or floor should also have its own locking mechanism that only qualified personnel can access to reduce potential security breaches from other tenants. This gives each tenant peace of mind by adding an extra layer of security.
Moreover, it’s essential to heavily secure areas with dangerous goods like gas and electrical power supplies and limit their access to only qualified personnel.
If your building has hazardous chemicals, then ensure that they’re properly stored in the appropriate chemical storage container from reputable brands like StoreMasta. This way, these chemicals won’t inadvertently pose a major security risk to its tenants.
- Post Safety Guidelines in Each Room
You should clearly display a set of house guidelines in each rentable space in your building to maintain order within the premises.
These guidelines should include rules like safety instructions and what to do during earthquakes and fires. It can also provide a visual on the quickest emergency exit route per room, as well as outline rules on how to use certain appliances and utilities within the room.
Besides that, these guidelines can also serve as a way to relay information on building policies, such as proper waste disposal rules, etiquette with other clients, and time-in and time-out scheduling.
By putting this across each room, each tenant will be on the same page regarding building safety information, which can help enhance the security of everyone within the premises.
- Get Ample Insurance Coverage
Even if you’ve been encouraging tenants to keep safe and have upheld proper safety practices yourself, there’s always a non-zero chance for something to go terribly wrong. In order to protect yourself from such scenarios, it’s vital to get insurance coverage as soon as you can.
Consider getting buildings and content insurance for your property. The coverage should extend to fire damage and earthquake damage. You should also consider getting liability coverage in case someone gets injured in your tenant’s unit, which can put you out of a financially bad situation.
Of course, be sure to encourage your tenants to insure their belongings as well. This way, everyone will receive some form of financial compensation in case things turn south.
- Hire Security Personnel
Another good way to improve tenant safety is by hiring roving security personnel to patrol the area.
These officers act as a visible deterrent that can stop crime from happening, helping improve the safety of the vicinity. They can control the inflow and outflow of tenants, watch over specific zones, and act as first responders when suspicious activities are detected.
These officers are best used in tandem with surveillance systems and other security tools as they can supervise them and address any issues in a way technology cannot. Furthermore, they also give your tenants a point person for any security needs, which can be helpful in enhancing their peace of mind.
- Install CCTVs
CCTV cameras are an effective deterrent against theft since it helps monitor activity in different areas of the building.
Putting them in high-traffic areas like entrances, hallways, and common areas can reduce incidents of crime since it gives off the impression that someone is constantly surveilling the premises.
In the event that criminal activity does occur, CCTV tapes can provide valuable evidence on how certain events played out, ensuring that investigations are done with solid proof and granting the perpetrator accountability for their actions as it’s all recorded footage.
- Keep The Vicinity Illuminated
Tenant safety isn’t only about crime prevention. It’s also about ensuring that roaming the premises is as risk-free as possible for the tenants.
When certain areas of the building are dark, it can increase the chances of accidents like falls and slips occurring, which can cause injury or damage to the affected individuals. Illumination helps deter this, or at least, removes your liability as you’ve provided enough resources to help prevent the accident.
Furthermore, ample illumination, especially in outdoor public areas, is crucial to help deter criminal activity like theft and vandalism from happening during the night.
If you don’t want to spend an exorbitant electrical bill, you can use motion-activated lights to provide lighting on your property on an as-needed basis. In any case, having proper illumination can help your tenants navigate the premises at any time of day while deterring crime, which can help make it a more secure space for everyone.
- Install Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Detectors
Most government bodies regulate the inclusion of smoke detectors and alarms at public properties. Its utility comes in alerting the presence of fires and smoke within the building, giving time for tenants to evacuate the premises quickly.
Carbon monoxide detectors are also useful additions to a building, alerting the presence of any gas leaks. CO can be harmful to humans if they’re exposed to it for prolonged durations, and the gas’s odourless and colourless properties make it incredibly hard to detect without specialised equipment.
By installing these detectors, you can prevent potential tragedies and help keep your tenants safe. Even if these events don’t occur, having them within your premises provides peace of mind to you and your tenants and ensures compliance with local fire and health safety regulations.
- Conduct Regular Building Inspections
It’s essential to conduct regular building inspections to keep your building safe. While it may seem like a lot of work on top of everyday responsibilities as a landlord, it’s an essential task to uphold tenant safety and prevent hazards from spiralling into something worse.
As taking up responsibilities as a landlord can feel like a full-time job already, you can choose to delegate the inspection work to qualified professionals.
For instance, plumbers can look into potential leaks and piping problems in your building through a quality checklist, whereas electricians can look into electrical systems and whether there are faulty wirings or not.
By having these professionals assess your building’s safety codes, you can gain expert advice on things you can do to improve the safety of your building. For instance, they could tell you to get new fire extinguishers or replace your alarm systems.
Of course, they can also help in identifying problem areas in your building and make the required fixes to patch that problem—helping keep the building in top condition.
- Install High-Quality Locks
It’s essential to invest in well-engineered locks to prevent malicious actors from breaking in and rummaging through offices and rooms with ill intent. Lockpicking is something that anyone can pick up, making it all the more important for you as a landlord to invest in the best security measures to keep your tenants safe.
Some high-quality locks you can consider are deadbolts and smart locks, as they’re built with advanced mechanisms that have a strong and near-penetrable locking system.
Besides investing in these locks, you should also regularly maintain the lock’s quality, especially at the entrance and exits. This can come in the form of lubricating the locks and making key lock changes. You should also tell your tenants to be responsible with their keys and not share them with outsiders.
By upholding proper lock management, you can ensure that your property remains safe and secure for tenants throughout the day.
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