Rental Property Investor · Columbus OH (columbus, oh) · Member since 2020 · 143 posts · 71 votes
Recently, I had a break in at a short term rental I have in Columbus, Ohio. The unit had only been vacant for two days when someone kicked in the back door. I was lucky notice the break in quickly, as I just happened to stop by and check on the property within a day or two of them breaking in. They had moved in a fair amount of personal belongings, mostly clothing, and had removed two televisions.
The police asked if there was any security camera recordings, but when I contacted the management company, they said that there were not recordings because the memory cards had been removed from the cameras.
Does anyone have any advice for this situation? It seems like a design flaw to have a camera that can be so easily defeated. Perhaps there are more expensive cameras that provide for more robust video capture?
I am having the locks replaced with ones that have an audible alarm if someone tries to force them, and I am improving the lighting on the property. I have considered and ADT type alarm the contacts the police, but I have been told that the police are actually pretty slow to respond to those as most of the calls they get for these are false alarms.
I use Z Modo cameras in mine when they are not occupied. It plugs into a wall outlet and connects to the internet in the house. It detects motion and sound, it starts recording and sends you an alert. You can see the camera on your phone. I caught an intruder and they spent 14 months in jail. I also caught a few mice on the camera milling around a mouse trap. Also caught a starling flying around in a house. I whacked that starling with a broom then tossed it in the street for the stray cats to eat.
It is tough. Proper lighting and video cameras are the base layer. Make sure you have some remote via cloud but also out of the reach of the intruder/where they can't unplug the wifi and you lose service. The biggest way to prevent this is to not Airbnb in bad areas. I recommend to stick to A/B class areas only. Some people try to brute force hood properties into Airbnbs to maximize cash flow but you're doing a disservice to the guests and are asking for trouble from the local riff raff.