Self Storage Security

The self storage industry in the United States has evolved both as an industry and as a target. Self Storage companies offer services and amenities as varied in scope and depth as any service based marketplace. Criminals however, are discovering in even greater numbers that self storage facilities can be a source of revenue and a base for illegal operations.

Once satisfying only the need to store consumers’ surplus possessions, the self storage industry now provides dedicated and specialized storage for recreational vehicles, boats, fine art and antique collections. Many facilities throughout the United States are now offering personalized services such as:

• Customer specified climate conditioning
• Wireless in-unit motion sensing
• Unique customer access control and recording
• Surveillance camera monitoring via a secure web site

Self storage owners and managers have always fought to prevent thieves from breaking in and ransacking customer units. However the threats that present themselves today are not only broader in scope, but much more pervasive in frequency and no longer an unusual occurrence.

Which is Worse: Criminals Breaking In or Moving In?

It’s a rhetorical question that unfortunately many self storage owners have had to ask themselves. Self storage facilities have traditionally been designed to resist after-hours break-ins, utilizing a variety of fences, locks, lighting and live-in managers. These tactics frankly work well to discourage the occasional thief or teenagers on a lark. The professional thief on the other hand will easily circumnavigate these measures, and poses a greater threat to the facility.

Thieves possess a greater motivation and more importantly, a broader range of skills and equipment to defeat many security strategies. Locks can be picked, deadbolts can be broken and sirens can be silenced. Thieves can operate over a prolonged period, renting a storage unit legitimately and then breaking into other units after hours. They are frequently experienced with this type of crime and focused on their systematic attack from within.

One of the hardest to detect and yet most damaging sources of burglary is from managers and employees of the storage facility. Operating with relative impunity and generally above suspicion, self storage facility staff members generally have free reign within a building and can break into units under the auspices of ‘maintenance’. With access to customer records and the ability to predict customer arrivals, these unscrupulous individuals can wreak extensive damage over extended periods with little chance of detection, and then move on to another company before a pattern of crime is detected.

One of the most insidious threats to self storage owners on the rise in recent years are the criminals who will rent a storage unit and then “move in”. The unit then becomes a base of operation for illegal activities, the more common of which is the creation of a functioning methamphetamine lab. These criminals work hard to be unobtrusive and inconspicuous, yet represent a chemical hazard that could threaten a part or even the whole of a storage facility. Ironically, the favorite targets of the meth lab culprits tends to be quiet, rural storage facilities as opposed to the suburban and ‘big city’ units.

Minimizing Your Target Profile

FocusMicro Security Consultants can help self storage business owners take steps to reduce the likelihood of their facility being burglarized or a base for illegal operations. Many of the strategies that should be implemented at all self storage centers involve the development and implementation of security procedures, followed with scrupulous adherence and monitoring verification. Other tactics involve the installation and utilization of cost effective technology solutions to achieve a basic yet comprehensive web of security layers for the storage facility.

• Screen storage unit renters during the application process. Require a picture I.D. and a physical street address, and then verify that the address is valid. Obtain a telephone number that is tied to the street address and not to a mobile phone.
• Check out your managers by performing routine criminal and credit background checks through a local security agency. Verify their professional references and get secondary references from these individuals as well.
• Make the facility manager visible with an office that overlooks the entrance to the facility. Ensure that the manager’s office has extensive windows so that not only can the manger visually scan a broad area, but customers can see the manager as well.
• Use gated ingress and egress controls to the facility. FocusMicro security consultants can determine the best type of mechanisms for your facility’s layout, and provide password systems that record each customer’s entrance and departure from the property.
• Develop a relationship with local law enforcement and stay in touch with them on a regular basis. Many agencies relish the opportunity to perform training and drills in self storage facilities because of the complexity they provide for officers and dogs alike.
• Implement and enforce security protocols developed specifically for your facility. FocusMicro Security Consultants understand that each self storage company has its own unique needs and constraints. Development and the regular review of a comprehensive security program is essential to maintaining optimum security and safety for your property.
• Install a comprehensive surveillance system that not only provides excellent coverage of the exterior grounds, but of inside hallways and offices as well. FocusMicro Digital Video Security Systems deliver crisp, clear color video that records 24/7 and maintains a video history for 60+ days. Easy to learn and use by non-technical people, still images and video clips can be exported and saved for future review by owners and law enforcement personnel. Owners can access both current monitoring activities and video history from any computer with internet access or a corporate LAN/WAN connection.
• Display some of your security video monitors so that customers appreciate the scope of video coverage that the facility has. Do not display all of the monitors, keeping at least one that cannot be viewed by renters. This induces a degree of uncertainty regarding the extensiveness of the surveillance system.

Improving Your Security

If the facility has the basic security elements in place, virtually all self storage organizations can benefit from enhancing and upgrading their security measures. Not only will companies experience a reduction in security incidences, but the improve security measures can be used to attract additional customers at higher rental rates. It behooves any organization to perform a detailed Return-On-Investment (R.O.I.) analysis on potential upgrades and enhancements as part of their comprehensive security program review. FocusMicro has extensive experience performing security studies and R.O.I. analysis for companies both large and small. Contact a FocusMicro Security Consultant for more information on this topic.

• Offer door alarms to customers as a billable option or on all units as a benefit of your facility. This feature controls access to a rental unit by password. FocusMicro access control systems have an extensive feature set that can be configured to the specific needs of a storage facility.
• Make your security program part of your marketing, featuring the main components of your security measures prominently in brochures, billing statements and facility posters. This will not only attract potential customers, but will also serve to encourage criminals to look for easier pickings.
• Implement a maintenance program to keep equipment operating properly and at full capability. Some insurance companies offer a reduction in premiums to organizations that have a comprehensive and well documented Preventative Maintenance System in place.
• Minimize or eliminate false alarms. False alarms are the bane of law enforcement agencies nationwide, with estimates as high as 98% of all alarms are in actually invalid. Integrated Digital Video Surveillance and Access Control systems from FocusMicro is the only proven way to achieve this difficult goal. Police quickly recognize a company whose security system generates only valid, timely alarms.
• Employ multiple alarm strategies that take into account the time of day and nature of the security breach, while generating multiple redundant alarms. An unauthorized access to a maintenance closet in the middle of the business day should page staff members and call managers’ cell phones, while large scale motion within a hallway in the middle of the night should turn on sirens and lights while notifying police and facility owners and managers. FocusMicro integrated Digital Video Surveillance and Access Control systems can do all of this and far more.
• Use cylinder locks on unit doors that are of high quality to both discourage thieves from picking or breaking the lock and to resist the environmental conditions of your facility.
• Remote access monitoring can be offered to customers as a billable option. Utilizing FocusMicro’s proprietary ESP™ technology, customers can use a password to access a secure web site that displays live video images of their unit.
• Wireless motion sensors can be installed in customer units, motor homes, vehicles or boats as an additional security measure. This billable option not only increases revenues but provides customers with an improved peace of mind as well.

All self storage companies face a wide variety of potential security threats on a daily basis. The scope and breadth of these threats are constantly in a state of growth and expansion. Conversely, security technology and strategies are evolving at a rapid pace as well. FocusMicro is at the forefront of this evolution, with a complete range of services and solutions for self storage organizations. Whether your facility is a small, owner operated company or if you own and manage a multi-state organization, FocusMicro can help you direct your security strategies. Contact a FocusMicro Security Consultant for a preliminary evaluation of your security needs today.