Being Safe While Touring Your Community
Renting apartments is important, but so is your safety. With a few tips you can stay safe on all your tours.You always want to be safe on these tours, so here are a few tips:
- Always take a photo ID from all adults that will be touring the property. Lock those ID’s in the office or give them to another office staff member to hold.
- Leave the front door of the apartment open, prop it open if you have to. If you have deadbolts, when the door is opened, you can turn the deadbolt so that the door won’t shut all the way. Always let your visitors go in first. This is for everything, the apartment, each room, community room, laundry room, etc.
- Take the maintenance man with you. Safety in numbers. And let someone else know which unit you will be showing and when.
- Have a code phrase so if you are starting to feel uncomfortable, you can say it to the maintenance man or call the office on the two-way radio. It can be something as simple as: “I just thought about my conference call and can’t remember when it is.” This lets your staff know to come to the apartment if you are alone or to even say something back, like…”I’ll check on your conference call time and I just wanted you to know that Officer Miller is here and says he needs to talk to you about the Crime Watch meeting.” This will let the visitors know that an officer is on site and they better behave themselves. When you get back to the office, your staff can always say the officer was called to an emergency, etc. Go with your gut feeling…better to be safe than sorry.
Just stay safe. Renting apartments is important, but not near as important as your life.
My next post will show you how to prepare for your tour.
