Have you ever lost your STR house keys?

Question

Last weekend I set my master set of keys on the bed rail of my truck and forgot to pick them up.  The keys fell off.  I traced my route about 10 minutes later but someone had picked up the keys.  The keys have each address stamped into them.  Yesterday I was collecting rent from some guys from central America and they said someone tried to unlock their front door, and they had a big bundle of keys.  They wanted $5 for the bundle of keys.  My tenants pointed some handguns at them and the people with the keys left with the keys.  I reported this to the police.  The detective I told my story to had been in one of my STRs a few years ago to arrest an intruder that we caught on camera.  He said as long as you have motion cameras up in your vacant places, give us a call if you see an intruder.

Ezra Henderson · Answer

Lol. And people say real estate investing is boring.

Dominic A. · Answer

My "janitor keys" are locked to a Bluetooth key tag and each one has a label that only I can understand (it's supposed to be a code myself AND my team can understand...but I get calls all the time so I need something easier I guess lol). With that in mind...it's still totally possible to run into a problem.

We inventory the keys as they come and go, and we always have an idea if something has gone missing (sounds like you did this).

We use a keyless system for STRs, but if a guest requests a key we do provide one. Has a key been stolen or lost in this case? Yes, 7 times.

Whenever possible, we use locks my team knows how to personally change (my favourite type are the ones where we can swap out the full cartridge for another). That way, if we need to, we can ensure the lock for that unit is completely different in a matter of minutes and all we need to do is switch the keys out for our management set (I also like to tape keys to loose cartridges/locks so we can easily reinstall them somewhere else later). We essentially play a shell game with our locks and it seems to keep folks guessing.

There is surely another expert of BP who will tell you why this is a really stupid system. But, so far it's a system so stupid it's never been cracked.

If someone has a better story/plan I am now also very curious and invested.

Jon Martin · Answer

No. Keyless entry for the win.

Have you ever lost your STR house keys?

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