Introduction
With news about terrorist attacks and acts of terrorism being aired practically evey day over all kinds of media, there is a renewed interest in the security of the home or apartments which we live in. The preception of condominiums having better security has been one of the most obvious reason for the public in choosing to stay in condominiums over private property where financial considerations is not an issue in making such choices. In the past, having a security guard at the entrance of each apartment block and another monitoring the incoming and outgoing of vehicles constitutes acceptable security procedures. Due to budget constraints, it is the same guard who does both the functions in smaller housing estates. At the end of the day the end user get a form of security but it's effectiveness is questionable. More often than not, these lapses are tolerated until some incidents happened to the residents before some form of measures are taken to look into the problems associated with the security in residential building. Here are some of the security breaches which has taken place in some of the residential building over the years. Due to confidential considerations the names of these locations are not revealed:
- During the upgrading exercise in a condominium, the surrounding walls were demolished to build new retaining wall. A resident was robbed by 2 robbers who managed to sneak into the building and hid themselves in the fire escape to stake out the apartment. During that incident the resident lost $40,000 in cash and jewellery.
- a band of robber posing as movers cleaned out all the furniture and fixtures in apartments of various condominiums all over the island.
- Salesman and promoters going apartment to apartment to try to peddle their wares and harassing the occupants.
- Vehicles parked in condominiums being vandalised.
- Outsiders using the carparks in condominium indiscriminately

You do not have to be the victim of these incidences

Condominiums

Recommended security upgrades

Hardware and structural changes
1) Install an intercom system or make sure that your existing intercom system is operating efficiently. If the wiring of the existing intercom systems is faulty, it is more cost effective to replace them with tele-entry systems.
2) Restrict access to the building to 1 or 2 access points where they can be monitored by guards or CCTV camera systems. Install grills or walls to close up all the other entrances to the building. Make sure that the fire escapes are not closed; they should be properly secured by locks which can only be opened from the inside of the building.
3) Install access control system onto the doors to the entrances and link the doors to the intercom (tele-entry system) as well to enable the residents to open the doors to all bona fide visitors to enter these premises.
4) Install a CCTV system (including CCTV in the lift cars) with recording facilities to capture all possible security breaches for further action.
5) Install carpark barriers with access control (proximity cards or transponders) or RFID remote control system for residents to ensure that all the cars of non-residents are routed to a certain entry point where the security guards can record and control their movement.
6) Install guards tour points all over the residential building to monitor the patrol movements of the security guards deployed.
7) Install a burglar alarm system in your apartment.

High-end feature to enhance the security of the apartments
Change the locking system of all the excess doors of each individual floor of the apartment to allow these doors to be opened from inside the apartment lobby only. Install exclusive floor access system to control the access of all non-residents to the floor which they are suppose to be visiting.

Note:

|Top of page|