Essential Home Security for Rental Properties
As a property manager or landlord, your primary responsibility is ensuring a safe and secure home for your tenants. Beyond being a moral imperative, strong security protocols are essential for minimizing your liability and protecting your investment. A properly secured unit creates peace of mind for your tenants and demonstrates your commitment to their safety.
Here is a guide to the three foundational practices you should implement to maintain excellent security standards for all your rental properties.
1. The Golden Rule: Always Re-key Between Tenants
Even when a tenant faithfully returns their set of keys, you have no way of knowing how many unauthorized copies might still be "floating around." Old keys present a genuine security risk for new occupants.
The Best Practice
Re-key the existing locks every single time a tenant vacates. Re-keying is an affordable process where a locksmith changes the internal pins of the lock cylinder, making the old key useless, while allowing the current hardware to remain.
Timing is Key: Schedule the re-keying process after all final maintenance and repairs have been completed on the unit. This ensures that no maintenance worker or contractor using an old key can access the property after the new tenants move in. Only the new tenant and your office should possess the working key.
2. Upgrade to High-Quality Deadbolts (The 1-Inch Standard)
The type and quality of your locks are just as important as the re-keying process. An inadequate lock is simply an invitation for trouble.
Focus on the Deadbolt
According to security experts like Claude Hensley with Lock Man Locksmith, every exterior door should be secured by a 1-inch deadbolt.
Understand the "Throw": The "throw" is the length of the bolt that extends from the door and into the frame when the lock is engaged. Many older homes have deadbolts with throws of only a half-inch, which offer very little resistance to a physical attack.
The Kick-In Defense: When installing a new deadbolt, ask your locksmith to use a strike plate (the metal plate screwed into the door frame) secured with extra-long screws (at least three inches). These screws anchor the strike plate not just to the thin door frame face, but deep into the sturdy wall stud behind the frame. This simple upgrade dramatically increases the lock's resistance to a violent "kick-in" attack.
A Critical Reminder: If your tenants are only going to lock one lock, educate them to always lock the deadbolt and not just the doorknob. A locking doorknob provides minimal security; the deadbolt is the true protector.
3. Simple Measures for Tenant Comfort and Safety
Security is not only about physical barriers; it’s also about empowering your tenants to feel safe in their home.
Install a Peephole: Ensure every exterior door has a working peephole at an appropriate height. This simple, affordable installation allows a tenant to visually confirm a visitor's identity without opening the door. As the old adage wisely states, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!"
By consistently applying these three strategies—re-keying, upgrading hardware, and adding simple viewing aids—you establish a high standard of care that benefits both your tenants and your business.
Do you have a consistent re-keying schedule for all your properties? If not, reaching out to your trusted locksmith today is the easiest way to immediately boost your property security.
