Apartment Owners, Police Encourage Neighborhood Watch Among Tenants

The Los Angeles Police Department and an association of apartment house owners are launching an effort to spread the Neighborhood Watch program to San Fernando Valley apartment dwellers to cut down on crime and protect building owners from lawsuits.

Neighborhood Watch, in which residents of an area watch for suspicious persons or activity, has been credited with significantly reducing burglaries, but in the past the program has been limited to residents of houses.

A kickoff meeting to explain the new program to apartment owners, managers and tenants is scheduled for 7 tonight at Van Nuys High School.

Named Apartment Watch, the program will “teach apartment dwellers how to be the eyes and ears of the police, teach them that they can catch criminals by reporting crime,” said Sgt. Bruce Hagerty of the LAPD’s Crime Prevention Unit.

Called First in State

It will be the first such crime-prevention program for apartment dwellers in California, he said.

Police gave credit for originating the program to Diane Wood, assistant executive director of the Apartment Assn. of the San Fernando Valley and Ventura County, who is also a volunteer crime-prevention instructor for the police Neighborhood Watch program.

The association represents 3,000 apartment house owners in the San Fernando Valley, about 23% of the total, and about 500 in Ventura county, a spokeswoman for the association said.

Wood said: “With a Neighborhood Watch program tailored to the needs of the apartment dweller, you’ll know there’s something wrong if the guy next door is on vacation and you see furniture being moved out of his apartment. And you’ll call the police.”

Lack of Familiarity

“Apartment dwellers don’t feel they’re part of a neighborhood,” said Beth Powis, a spokeswoman for the association. “Often they come and go in their own little world and they’re not familiar with their neighbors or even the building manager.”

The Apartment Watch program will try to get tenants to recognize their neighbors and encourage building managers to keep track of those who enter saying they are meter readers or making deliveries, she said.

“In apartment buildings, there’s always somebody coming in or out--delivery people, meter readers, tenants moving in or out--and burglars in disguise sometimes use ploys like that.”

“Apartment renters are constantly preyed upon by thieves and violent criminals,” said Cmdr. Mark Kroeker, who oversees the Crime Prevention Unit. “But police agencies cannot do their jobs alone. It’s a team effort. Apartment dwellers need to become our allies.”

Concern Over Lawsuits

Also, Wood said, building owners are concerned about lawsuits by tenants, in light of a recent California Supreme Court ruling that holds owners liable for all defects in their buildings, whether or not they knew the defects existed.

Whether the ruling applies to crimes has not yet become an issue, Wood said, “but if the owners take preventive steps, then they can tell a judge, ‘Look, I did what I could, I’ve got an Apartment Watch program in my building.’