Do You Expect Safety In A Luxury Apartment?

Use This Checklist!

While many live in apartments until they can own their own home, some choose to live in them for the sheer advantages. In many urbanized areas, apartments are the only option, and luxury apartments can mean a high standard of living where things like maintenance and lawn care are taken care of by others. 

Should you choose to live in a luxury apartment though, you do inherently expect a high standard of safety, not only for yourself and family, but also your possessions. If you are in the hunt for a safe option among your community's luxury apartments, use this checklist to find everything that you need.

1) Security personnel: The form or shape this takes might vary from apartment complex to apartment complex. Very high-end apartments might have full-time security staff on-duty for entire shifts, although they might only be there at night. Others will contract security companies to patrol all their complexes, and possibly give you the option of paging them for courtesy calls. Some complexes will offer discount apartments to actual law enforcement personnel so that residents know a policeman is nearby if needed.

2) Traffic control: Most complexes will post warning signs saying that trespassers are not welcome on the property, and that there should be no soliciting. A gated community will also seriously reduce the amount of non-resident or unauthorized vehicles that can come in. These measures are by no means foolproof, but they help a lot.

3) Security systems: A luxury apartment should have some form of security system that you can activate and use, with options more robust than just a lock on your front door, although a good deadbolt helps too. The entire complex should also have some kind of surveillance system in common areas. When people know they are being watched or recorded, they are far less likely to break the rules. Smoke detectors are also another feature to look for, although these are already mandated by law in most municipalities.

4) Secure parking: A parking garage, whether it be one large monitored garage for all residents, or individual secured garages for each resident, means that you can sleep at night knowing your car is safe and sound.

5) Insurance: The first of the last two things on this checklist to look for in a safe luxury apartment is actually up to you. Make sure that you are covered with a robust renter's insurance policy that will replace your belongings, give you liability protection, and if need be, a place to stay if displaced in an emergency.

6) Anything but the ground floor: The second of two things you do on your own is the last thing on this checklist, and that is getting any apartment that is second floor or higher. The chances of a home invasion drop dramatically from the first floor to the second, and they keep dropping each floor you go up. Not only are higher apartments safer, but they are less likely to suffer from leaks and flooding from units above them, and you get a better view out the window.