Criminals Need A Place To Live Also
By dan the roommate man, Fri Dec 9th
Rental housing crime studies have repeatedly shown that moderateto high-crime problems can usually be traced back to a smallpercentage of residents. Those causing the crime problems areoften the acquaintances, ex-spouses, or boyfriends of a legalresident who decided to move in without your permission.Resident Screening The best way to head off this problem is to practice residentscreening and enforce clearly defined and articulated communityrules that are emphasized during the lease application process.The resident needs to know that their tenancy may be in jeopardyif they bring in an unauthorized (and unscreened) occupant.Proof of this method is well documented in apartment propertiesall over the country, as police calls for service seem tofluctuate proportionally as resident screening standards andrule enforcement vary following management changes. Good resident screening involves checking credit, employment,rental history, and criminal background, if available. A goodscreening plan should call for all non-dependent occupants to beincluded on the lease and subject to the same residentqualifications. All children should be identified on the leasealong with maximum occupancy limits. In this day and age,resident screening is more than just establishing the ability topay rent. In my experience, properties that tend to have ahigher percentage of unauthorized occupants have lowered theirscreening standards on credit, rental and employment history,and don’t do available criminal background checks. A policy ofcollecting double deposits or getting co-signers for anotherwise unqualified applicant is asking for trouble down theroad and is unfair to the other residents. Criminal Infiltration
When career criminals (usually males) cannot qualify to rent,they will try to infiltrate your property by secretly moving inwith a legal resident. As you might expect, these undesirableoccupants tend to attract other unsavory characters. Thecharacter of your property can change drastically, if leftunchecked. The problem becomes acute when these unauthorizedoccupants are unemployed criminal types who hang out all day andall night and begin to ply their trade within your community. Asymptom of this condition is people hanging out in the parkinglot and high foot traffic in and out of a unit or group ofunits.
To fix serious illegal occupancy problems, sometimes youhave to clean house and evict residents for non-compliance withyour residency requirements. You need to re-emphasize youroccupancy standards and then fairly but firmly enforce therules. The Crime Free Multi-housing Program lease addendum is agood example of community rules that can be legally enforced.Eviction rates as high as 60 percent have been necessary toregain control over seriously troubled properties. Althoughfinancially painful in the short term, landlords soon get paidback in increased net operating income. It is common to see aproperty return to profitability after a few months with 98%occupancy rates and a waiting list. How to Spot UnauthorizedOccupants A fair question often asked is how do you identify anunauthorized occupant versus a short-term social guest? Theanswer is to "know your residents". This may seem like animpossible task, especially when your community exceeds onehundred units. Your community rules should have a writtenprocedure for notifying management when a social guest has anextended stay and to arrange for a parking space. To solve thisidentity crisis, property managers around the country have foundcreative ways to get to know their residents. What follows are some ideas to help you identify and deal withunauthorized occupants: * Establish written community rules for visiting social guests* Add new occupants/roommates to the lease only if they passscreening * Regularly audit units for unauthorized occupants(formally and informally) * Photograph each resident for thelease file for ID purposes (helpful for unit lockouts) * Assigncoded parking spaces and record vehicle information (easy tospot new cars) * Require parking permit decals on cars andmotorcycles * Require overnight guests to park in designatedguest spaces only (get vehicle info) * Train staff to be alertfor illegal occupants, new vehicles, and new children *Periodically, inspect units (smoke detectors, A/C filters,furnace ventilators, lock checks) * Always follow up all verbaloccupancy warnings with a letter * Serve non-compliance noticesfor every rule violation. Be consistent * Evict residents whoviolate community rules and house illegal occupants * Be fair,firm, consistent, and document, document, document About the author:Since 1989 dan the roommate man has helped 1000's of people findgood roommates. call him at 800-488-8050 orhttp://www.roommateexpress.com
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