apartment safety

So three weeks ago I moved to a new apartment... it's a decent place, in a historic neighborhood near the river. The neighbors are all friendly, and during the day there's always families walking and biking up & down my road. I'm pretty happy with the place.

But what I'm not happy about is the low-income housing project three streets over.

The day after I moved in, two guys in a car leaving the project randomly opened fire on a house one street over, and the house across ths street from me. Nobody was hurt, and there was a bunch of witnesses (myself included - this happened in broad daylight), but AFAIK they still don't know who did it.

It's 3:00 AM right now. Thirty minutes ago, I was awoken by someone banging on the window in my front door. I could hear the guy yelling at me, but couldn't make out what he had to say. I threw some pants on, grabbed my gun, and went to the door. Well, as soon as the guy at the door saw me, he began apologizing... he said he was looking for the previous tenant, and he was sorry for waking me, he was just looking to buy some marijuana. (edit: Just noticed that this is my 420th post, that's kinda funny)

Now, I'm starting to get a little worried about my safety. I've been keeping a gun handy, and I just got renter's insurance. I'm planning on putting alarms on the door and windows this weekend, and hopefully swapping the front deadbolt from one with the handle on the inside to one that takes the key on the inside too (so that someone can't just break the window out, reach in, & unlock the door).

So my question is... what would you do? And what else do you think I can do to keep myself safe here?

move.......

vtunderground said:

So my question is... what would you do? And what else do you think I can do to keep myself safe here?

Click to expand...

Move.

I used to live in a neighborhood like that when I was in school. You're going to constantly be bombarded with crap like that the entire time you live there. I bet the rent's cheap...mine was. Nice "historic" neighborhood by day...crackhouse alley by night.

I kept a Mossberg 590 near the bed and the HK .45 within arm's reach. Was awakened many, many times by con artists telling me they needed money for gas, bread, bus fare, etc., etc., etc. at all hours of the day and night. Neighbors across the street would have people walk up to their front windows at all hours and "transactions" would take place. It looked like a drive-through crackhouse or something.

If you stay, you'll have to put up with this $#%* the whole time you're there. It sucks.

JM-99
(Edit: Attowatt sniped me! )

Jive, mingle or move (the projects sure won't move). Personally, I would throw in the towel, liquidate all my assets and move to Montana for some law, order, peace and quiet.

Seriously, try to move.

Livinng in a place that has a street reputation as the place to go to buy drugs is not good.

If you can't move then my suggestion is that you get some type of surveillance camera system that will let you see everyone who is at the door and even close to the door but out of sight. A lot of drug dealers are getting robbed in home invasion type robberies lately. In some cases, these thugs even get the house wrong and break in on non drug dealers, or break into houses where the previous drug dealers no longer reside. Don't open the door for anyone you don't know.

Also see if the apartment will let you install a door bar, which will help if someone tries to push their way in.

Get some old video cams and install them with red led lights so they look like they're on, and put surveillance signs all over.

How about a 'no soliciting' sign?

greenlight said:

How about a 'no soliciting' sign?

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You think crackheads will know what "soliciting" means? And if they do, you think a sign will stop them?

JM-99

Note: various building/fire/safety codes -might- not allow the usage of a double-key deadbolt. The thought is that a key might not be available in an emergency, thus locking the occupant(s) inside during the emergency.

Note: changing locks or locking devices on an appartment -might- not be allowed by the laws or rental/lease agreements in your area. Sometimes the thought is that a landlord is supposed to be able to come-n-go through the apartment to perform maintenance/etc without you necessarily having to be there to let them in.

You can usually request the police to do a security inspection and make recommendations on how to make the place more secure. Note again that rental properties, like apartments, might be limited in the extent of the changes and/or modifications that you can do. See above Notes 1 and 2.

Double check the fine print on the renter's insurance. There might be sneaky clauses about not covering things unless specifically added via rider and additional cost. Things like electronics, computers, cameras, firearms, jewelry, etc. Gee, what -DO- they cover?

Move.

What everybody else said...move, and do it quickly...the next guy banging on your door may be owed big money by the previous dweller...or he may be looking for revenge for something and shoot the first person he sees.


CFU

Cheap rubber door stop.The kind for keeping doors open.Also do a great job keeping doors closed.I use them when I'm on the road.

Andy

If moving's not an option, consider swapping out the glass in the window/s in/by the door with polycarbonate. It's unbreakable, (and somewhat bulletproof if you can fit thick enough material in the frames) but it's pretty soft so you will need to clean it carefully to avoid scratching it. Wire reinforced glass is another option. Or just change out the door for something solid core or metal with a window too small to get to the deadbolt. Or perhaps the landlord would allow you to install a "Security screen door" which has perforated metal in a steel frame that both protects the entry door and can allow for some bug free ventilation. Any of these will avoid swapping out the deadbolt and more importantly, if the window's big enough, it won't matter if the bad guy can't open the door, he'll just crawl through the broken window.

Speaking of windows, are yours secure? Bars are the best option, but there are an endless variety of window locks available.

Is this place really worth the trouble? Granted nowhere is completely safe, but some places are more dangerous than others. I knew someone who lived in a similar neighborhood some years ago. Nice by day, drug wars at night. He had hung in there for a long time, 10 or 15 years, until the night he spent laying on the floor while bullets came through the bedroom walls. Then he moved.

Do you have to live there? It seems to me that after a while the door, window, lock, stop, alarm, camera system, dog, pistol, shotgun, ammo, alligator-filled moat, and possible legal costs would all add up in short order. Might be cheaper to just find digs in a neighborhood where an armed response isn't required to get rid of "solicitors."

greenlight said:

Get some old video cams and install them with red led lights so they look like they're on, and put surveillance signs all over.

How about a 'no soliciting' sign?

Click to expand...

Real bad idea.

That would scream: 'I have something worth of value that warrants all this surveillance.'
Those cameras that hide in wall clocks etc is what you would go for in a case like that.

Another idea: Call up Bush and tell him to put the so-called "Patriot" Act to a GOOD use for a change. If people going around randomly firing off guns at whatever doesn't constitute a terrorist, I don't know what does.

Round up the trash and get em off the streets.

How much is YOUR safety worth? I bet more than what they are charging you for rent.

MOVE!

HTH
AlexGT

MOVE MAN!!!

you can find somewhere safer. yes, the rent may be more $$$ but your live will be safer and more peaceful.

Back in the early 80's I went through a divorce and had to sell my house and I ended up in a small efficiency apt in a "historic district". At the time I was a cop. I ended up helping the locals on a pretty big drug bust. And, I also had the distinct pleasure of shooting a rapist kinda low after catching him in the act. When I identified myself, he reached into his pants......(which were a tad low because they were down around his ankles) anyway, the move caught me a little off guard and I was nervous and the gun went off. He started to bend down, and I tended to follow his move with my gun. An inch to the left and like Dolly Parton used to say "Mess with me and I will turn you from a rooster to a hen"

He yelled and screamed a little but had just a grazing wound to his thigh.

Anyway, a place like that can get a tad more exciting than you might like. Be vigilent and make sure you have good exterior lighting and heavy duty locks. Answering the door armed can't hurt either.

I have tolerated a lot of stuff at my apartment, which is nowhere near anything low income. I disarmed a fellow resident at gunpoint. My car and my unmarked have both been burglarized. I got set up for a possible home invasion. A cop took gunfire two blocks away just as I got home from my shift. That doesn't include all the usual hassles of living in an apartment.

While everybody says move, that may not solve the problem. Apartments just seem to draw the less desirable element, and nobody knows who belongs and who doesn't.

Also, I think the danger may be slightly overstated. I think I would move out of the former drug dealer's crib, to another unit, at least. You could ask some police officers which areas have less crime. I used CompStat on the internet to look at areas of my city that are the worst, but street crime is far more common than residential stuff.

I lock my doors and windows. I have a light timer. I have a doorstop alarm under my bedroom door. That's about it.

Be ready...
your car will be broken into eventually, maybe stolen,
you will have freaks knocking on the door...again,
your residence will probably get burgled too eventually,
is it worth living someplace you do not want/cannot go outside at night?
where you have to answer the door with a weapon in hand?

I think you have already answered your own question.
Personally I'd get a shotgun loaded with #4. Gives a little more oomph if they get in.
But if you can afford all these little helpful tidbits mentioned to make it "safer", you can afford to move.
As stated above, apartments seem to harbor problems to a certain extent.
One option is efficiencies or apartments attached to homes in better neighborhoods.
I know its not easy with costs and deposits and such but there are other options, main thing is the area you find to make your home.
No place is completely "safe", but it sounds like you can probably do better than where you are right now. Just MHO

LOL...It's 4:20 and you know what you're doing...

buy a pop gun, put a few cans out...every obce awhile in the night randomly shoot out the window at cans...

If your living in a insane peoples neighborhood..."fit in" would probably be better than put up a sign...

Mundus vult decipi, ergo dicipiatur.

The world wants to be decieved, so let it be decieved.