Mail thieves were getting creative in the Sundance Community, a large single-family home community in sunny Beaumont, California. At first, they pried open mailboxes, damaging the units in their attempts to get to the documents or packages inside. But after a few months, homeowners started opening their doors in the morning to find the entire mailbox gone, literally pulled out of the ground in the middle of the night. 

“This was really costly,” shared Mitzi Jimenez, a Community Manager for Associa, the property management company for Sundance. Charged with the day-to-day operations and management of Sundance’s 2,005 homes, Mitzi felt responsible for finding a solution that would effectively and affordably address the issue, while also drawing the appropriate boundaries between crime-solving and the property managers’ role.

“We would see a lot of activity on social media where people were posting about mail theft, asking, ‘what is security patrol doing about this?’”

The California neighborhood is home to residents ranging from retirees to young families. Many veterans and former service members make their home there as well. 

Sundance homeowners were really starting to feel the effects of the mail theft, which was being reported a few times a week. While Associa replaced the mailbox units, homeowners themselves were responsible for the financial burden of theft of their personal property. 

“Some of the homeowners were under the belief that we are here to stop crime — that as a property manager, we could be there to do the arrests. Well of course, that’s not our role. We can’t stop every issue from happening, but we did want to provide more information to help the police find the individuals responsible.”

In 2019, Mitzi, Associa, and the neighborhood Board of Directors began looking at Flock Safety as the solution to their challenges. The license plate readers provided a non-intrusive, privacy-conscious way to both give the police the evidence they needed and serve as a deterrent for potential troublemakers coming into the community.

“When we thought about Flock Safety, we realized that we just needed to have a presence, and show the homeowners that we were there. Flock Safety did that and went above,” said Mitzi. 

Why Flock Safety Works for Property Managers

Associa worked with the local police department to identify where their 18 Flock Safety Falcon cameras should be placed. In the event of an incident, they share the footage with the Beaumont Police Department, to take responsibility off of the shoulders of management and allow law enforcement to effectively address mail theft or other crime. 

“Now, when homeowners report an issue, our answer is that we have the cameras. We can reach out to them and get the time frame when the problem occurred and have the police go back and search.”

Flock Safety undoubtedly acts as a deterrent in Sundance, as Mitzi now receives fewer than one mail theft complaint a month, a drastic decrease from the multiple complaints a week they previously contended with. The cameras also help with crimes outside of Sundance, facilitating better collaboration between law enforcement and the community in Beaumont. 

Mitzi wholeheartedly recommends Flock Safety to other property managers and management companies. 

“It’s a tool that works at so many different levels — it adds value to the property manager, because you’re bringing something to the table for the Board to look at, and it adds something to the community because when someone learns about the system, they’re more inclined to buy a house here which increases the value of all the homes.”

“I really believe in it.”

Want to learn more about how Flock Safety can work for your community? Speak with a consultant about developing a custom safety plan today.

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