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By Kathy Groenewold
Self-storage facilities are easy prey for illegal activity with 24 hour operations, lack of ownership by the renter, storing of hazardous items, stolen goods and just the right environment for storing drugs and/or starting a meth lab. It is extremely important for property owners to take all necessary measures to reduce their liability and make crime prevention the highest priority at their self-storage facilities.
Let's begin with the self-storage manager. The front office is the first line of defense against criminal activity. Are you conducting criminal background checks on your self-storage managers? How about fingerprinting your manager? A majority of criminal activity can be prevented by knowing who is running your self-storage facility.
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You might be asking the question "How easy is it to obtain this information?" Accessing criminal databases is just a click away via the Internet. You might also consider retaining a vendor that conducts criminal background checks. Conducting criminal background checks involves a nominal fee, and not all vendors provide access to the same information. Be sure that the vendor has the capability of running the criminal background check in the manager’s last known county of residence. This is a very minimal investment in comparison to the investment you have made in your self-storage facility.
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You might also consider running a credit history check on your self-storage manager. Credit history is also an indicator of past and potential criminal activity. Again, this information is readily available through several agencies that conduct credit and criminal background checks.
The Tempe Police Department’s Crime Free Self-Storage Program requires member facilities to fingerprint tenants and highly recommends fingerprinting property managers as well. This serves as an additional deterrent for mangers to conduct criminal acts.
Your investment requires your attention. We strongly suggest that you begin conducting criminal and credit background checks and fingerprinting your property managers, relief managers and anyone else in charge of your day-to-day operations.
Kathy Groenewold is the Crime Free Self-Storage Coordinator for the Tempe Police Department’s highly successful Crime Free Self-Storage Program. The program’s goal is to help owners and managers of self-storage facilities keep theft and other illegal activity off their properties through a three-phase process of educational seminars, training and inspections. For further information on the Crime Free Self-Storage Program, please visit www.tempe.gov/cpu.
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