Neighborhood Watch

At an AvalonBay Communities leasing office in early June, a package arrived for a resident who wasn't home. It was ticking.

Office staff called the local police, who showed up with a bomb squad, X-rayed the package, and opened it carefully. Inside was a clock, which the absent tenant bought from a mail-order catalog. The well-intentioned sender had placed a fresh battery in it before shipping it.

"It was a good ending," says Laura Novak, senior director of risk management for AvalonBay Communities, the Alexandria, Va.-based owner of 40,000 apartment homes–mostly garden-style–in 140 locations. But if the suspicious ticking had turned out to belong to a bomb, it would have been in appropriate hands–those of the local police, she says.

Indeed, employees of AvalonBay Communities are quick to involve local authorities if they receive suspicious packages, observe suspicious behavior, or find suspicious items around their communities or even inside tenants' apartments. And they know exactly what "suspicious" means, thanks to training–mostly via memos from Novak's office–that has made them hyper-aware of the possibility that terrorists will either target an apartment building or move into one and plan their attack as their neighbors fix dinner or drift off to sleep.

The FBI has warned that apartment buildings, especially urban high-rises and landmarks, could be terrorist targets. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has asked landlords to notify it when tenants display behaviors associated with terrorism.

The U.S. Department of Justice drove both points home at around the same time AvalonBay had its ticking-package scare, when it released hair-raising details about an alleged al Qaeda plot involving suspect Jose Padilla to blow up multiple high-rises. Padilla and an accomplice, according to U.S. Deputy Attorney General James Comey, planned to rent apartments in buildings with natural gas heat, "seal those apartments, turn on the gas and set timers to detonate and destroy the buildings simultaneously at a later time." The original plan was to blow up 20 buildings at once, possibly in Washington, D.C., New York, Chicago, Florida, Texas, or California.

In response, managers and owners of apartment buildings and communities have enlisted maintenance crews, office staff, the local police, and even tenants as the "eyes and ears," says Roger Platt, senior vice president of the Washington, D.C.-based Real Estate Roundtable, "but they have to do it in a way that complies with laws."

Uncommon Sense To legally and effectively protect properties against terrorism, Tarragon Management requires all property management and maintenance employees to complete six courses–including one on emergency procedures–each year through Tarragon University if they want to keep their jobs. The courses, which cover everything from hazardous waste to sexual harassment, also focus on evacuation procedures, how to respond to residents who fear their neighbors are up to no good, and when to contact the police.

In New York City, more than 400 owners and managers have attended training seminars, hosted by the Real Estate Board of New York and led by the New York Police Department's Office of Counter Terrorism, on how to spot and prevent activity that could threaten buildings or their tenants.

Marolyn Davenport, REBNY's senior vice president, says last summer's blackout in the Northeast made some in the industry realize their buildings and staffs were unprepared for a major emergency.

But they're learning about more than evacuation procedures.

Jay Harris, who wrote guidelines for apartment management to follow in response to the threat of terrorism for the National Multi Housing Council, notes that managers have become more diligent about locking down supplies like fertilizer–used to make the explosives in the Oklahoma City bombing–and noticing when tenants have items like dismantled kitchen timers in their units.

At Mid-America Communities' 133 properties, an aggressive preventive maintenance program regularly sends staff into the units, notes Doug Clark, the Memphis-based firm's director of risk management. Maintenance staff has been told when to flag an apartment so managers can alert police.

"They're not in there to snoop or walk around; they're in there to work," notes Clark, whose staff notifies tenants in advance of their visit unless there's a maintenance emergency. "But if you've got nothing but a mattress on the floor or a bunch of sleeping bags, that raises a red flag."

Indeed, notes Davenport, New York City police warn apartment owners and managers about tenants who pay their rent in cash, have no furniture, fail to hook up phones, or move out in a hurry.

And architect Barbara Nadel, author of Building Security: Handbook for Architectural Planning and Design (McGraw Hill, 2004), says some landlords are requiring student tenants to prove they are enrolled in classes–and are suspect of those who seem to never go to school.

Tom Toomey, president and CEO of United Dominion Realty Trust, tells of a tenant in an Atlanta apartment community who moved out abruptly, leaving behind a gas-powered clothes dryer whose vent had been tampered with.

The local police and officials from a U.S. Department of Homeland Security field office were at the complex within four hours. They determined there was no threat.

Still, Toomey requires staff to report "what [they] think looks weird" so risk managers can decide when to call the police and what to report to federal authorities. They also can compare the report to other incidents in the complex to determine whether it's isolated.

"I don't want to be the guy who said, 'Those people lived in my community and this happened right under my nose,'" Toomey says.

New Worries Most major apartment firms have added a check against the FBI's and other government lists of known terrorists to their screening process for new tenants.

Using those lists to flag terrorists keeps the landlord's employees from having to decide which applicants might be terrorists, Clark says. "It's a pass-or-fail system, so the interpretation is out of the hands of the manager," he says. "That's the control that makes sure we treat everybody equally. The burden is not on [the manager's] back."

Tarragon Management uses a similar screening process. "I think that one can't panic, one can't overreact, one can't stereotype a certain individual, and that's a very big danger," says President Eileen Swenson.

Harris, who left the National Multi Housing Council to become vice president of business services for Registry Safe-Rent, a company that does applicant background checks, says more institutional investors are insisting on terror-related checks of potential tenants–and in some cases, current residents–before they agree to sign onto a deal with a realty firm. Their action stems from a 2001 executive order from President Bush that says the government can block a property transaction with a terrorist whose name appears on a government list.

In turn, realty owners are checking potential investors against those same lists.

Harris says the trend has filtered down to the level of criminal background checks as well; with the spike in requests for checks against the lists of known terrorists have come more orders for criminal screenings of tenants from companies that never did them before.

"There's a heightened awareness of security now, both on the part of the

resident and the owner," says Harris. "Owners better understand–after 9/11–that their residents need to feel secure."

Toomey says both kinds of security–from terrorism and from personal and property crimes like rape and robbery–are two sides of the same risk management plan.

While a car parked in the same spot for too long might once have seemed a matter only for the local police, for example, United Dominion managers now report it to federal authorities well.

"Crime is everywhere, and unfortunately we are now forced to be a little bit more alert and aware about what is all around us," agrees Mid-America's Clark.

Still, Clark notes, "The terrorist is a different type of person. They will tend to plan a particular act against property or a person," unlike the burglar or rapist whose targets are often random and whose actions are more opportunistic.

"So we have certain tools in place to help management guard against crime. The industry is catching up and trying to create these tools to guard against terrorism," Clark notes.

Nosy Neighbors Among those tools are the tenants of apartment buildings, who know better than anyone what's going on next door. Building management, notes Nadel, is doing a better job of communicating with residents so they know when the government has issued its terror alerts, how to spot a potential threat, and what to do about it.

"It's a community issue, not an individual thing," says Nadel. "It goes back to crime prevention through environment design: in large part, having people in neighborhoods keeping an eye on what's going on. That's first."

Even vendors of building security equipment don't argue with that prevailing low-tech approach to terror prevention.

"I don't know how much you can do," concedes Jack Brandt, CEO of Technology Support Inc. in Houston. "It's not really practical having someone like you have at an airport, searching people's bags as they come in and out of the complex."

Robert Rothenberg, president and chief operating operator of Tarragon Corp., agrees. "The fear that people have is not within the apartments themselves," he says, "so security devices are not going to help. The alarm system is not where the 9/11 fears are."

Besides, notes David Harville of Criterion Strategies, a training and consulting firm dealing with emergency management and counter-terrorism issues, "Security is only as good as the people who are operating it and standing behind it. You can put locks on doors all day long, but if someone is going to prop that door open, then that negates it. The foundation of security falls on people. They need to be educated on why the security exists, how it is deployed, and how do I make sure it's effective."

To that end, AvalonBay Communities and others are working with the American Red Cross to publish handouts for tenants that teach them about how to identify threatening situations and what to do in case of a terror-related emergency or other disaster. Novak says the content carries more weight with tenants when it comes from the American Red Cross than if it's from the landlord alone, so she puts both names on every piece.

Toomey says the apartment industry will get better at predicting and preventing terrorism as it gets used to that fact that the threats are "not a passing moment. It's a fact of the way we'll all have to do business."

Still, he's optimistic. "Over time, things fix themselves if you turn on the daylight," he says, "and that's where we're at. We're just turning on the daylight to this stuff and trying our best."

–Sharon O'Malley is a freelancer based in College Park, Md. She can be reached at somalley@nova.umuc.edu.

Advance Warning The apartment industry has partnered with the federal government to share information about terrorism.

Through a real estate Information Sharing and Analysis Center (ISAC) formed in February 2003, building owners and managers report "malicious" incidents to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The agency, which receives such reports from all over the country, can detect patterns among the reports that could clue them in to concerted efforts among terrorists in different locations.

In turn, DHS tips those owners and managers when those patterns flag a particular city or type of activity. Apartment executives, for instance, knew details of suspect Jose Padilla's alleged plot to use natural gas in sealed apartments to ignite the buildings long before they were released to the public, says Roger Platt, senior vice president of the Washington, D.C.-based Real Estate Roundtable, an association of real estate CEOs and chairs of major trade associations. The roundtable's members also are members of the real estate ISAC.

Some of them have government security clearances so they can receive classified information about terror-related plans involving apartment buildings.

"Sharing information so everybody knows what everybody else knows gives the government a fuller perspective on what's happening at the property level," says Carey Brazeman, director of communications for the ISAC. For more information about the real estate ISAC, visit www.reisac.org.

Safety First- Being Alert Is Your Best Defense The National Multi Housing Council recommends that apartment firms take the following precautions against terrorism:

1. Beef up internal reporting. Know tenants, employees, and what is on and around the property. Share information about terrorism alerts with on-site staff. Train employees to spot suspicious behavior and to report it to local authorities.

2. Keep tenants in the loop. Use the community newsletter, e-mails, Web sites, and flyers to alert tenants of potential threats. Encourage residents to notify the local police or FBI field office and the building's manager of suspicious behavior.

3. Inspect the units. Walk through vacant units, and instruct maintenance crews to be observant when they're in apartments doing repairs. The FBI recommends reporting tenants whose apartments contain materials like gunpowder, nails, dismantled kitchen timers, firearms, ammunition, or chemicals.

4. Review contractors and employees. Require contractors to bond their own employees and screen them for criminal histories. Check the work they do every day, especially in nonpublic areas.

5. Screen applicants. Verify their identification, check their references, and learn if their names appear on any government lists of known terrorists. Require them to produce originals rather than copies of documents like driver's licenses.

6. Strengthen relationships with the police and local FBI offices. Make sure they know their way around the building or complex.

7. Secure nonpublic areas. Keep equipment shops and storage areas under lock and key. Report loss of keys to the building owner.

–Michael Bordenaro is a freelance writer in Chicago. He can be reached at mike@bordenaro.net.