| In large cities on the east coast we didn't run into this problem because nearly every new development had a doorman. In the Bay Area and LA many apartment buildings don't have a front desk, they have a leasing office that may or may not be open, and typically keeps odd hours. With the exception of high-rises, new developments in SF and South Bay with under 200 units typically don't have a front desk. They do have security patrol come in for a couple of hours nightly, but they're not supposed to get involved and just take notes of suspicious activity, then email it to the leasing office to review the next day. Security will call the police if it's blatant theft of break-in, but they rarely catch it because this is one person patrolling a garage and endless hallways for just a few hours each night. When the security patrol car is by the building entrance, they can return a couple of hours later to steal packages, break into the bike room, break into cars, open lockboxes, etc. However, things got out of hand significantly during the pandemic. Package theft and mailbox theft started happening during daylight hours. At one building in Mountain View they stole the USPS master key as the mail carrier had the boxes open putting in the mail. One leasing agent was assaulted during a tour and the keys & fobs were stolen. You can't fight this type of crime by having a security guard in every area of every building. The issue is rooted in that the thieves and squatters know that they will get away with it. The criminals became bolder and even if confronted by a security guard, they have no more power than your average citizen has. They can just observe and take notes. |
I'm not sure why it's so hard to for people to understand when you don't prosecute all crime, crime starts to bubble up and grow rampant but here you go. None of this is a surprise to anyone paying the least bit of attention to what has been going on in CA for a long time now. We are seeing in real time the effects of this grand experiment - how many people's lives and livelihoods have to be destroyed before CA residents start demanding real accountability?
I'm not holding my breath. Just stay in CA. Do not leave and then start to shit up other states with your batshit crazy politics too.