This is a petition to require surveillance cameras operating on any Public Storage facility that is legally licensed to operate business. It should be required as a matter of course to protect the safety of the customers that place and withdraw their personal items from those storage units and for consumer protection to deter any possible thefts or bodily harm of the items placed in the units themselves. My experience at Public Storage located at 5570 S. Airdrome Street Los Angeles, CA. 90019 is an example as to why this action needs to be taken. My storage unit along with several other tenant's unit was recently burglarized with several personal items missing. Three days before my unit was burglarized, I alerted the storage manager that the locks on my door to the storage unit had been tampered with. As a result of tampering, my key did not work upon my attempt to enter the unit. Instead of the issue being immediately addressed, I was told I would have to fill out a form which I did February 1, 2017 and wait for a property district manager. In addition, I was told that that this district manager would not be able to come to the facility until 3-7 business days. On the night of the robbery, itself between 7:00 p.m. on February 1, 2017, I was told there was a witness who called the police, which took the police hours to respond, further allowing other storage unit tenants on the premises at that time the access to go through my unit and steal my belongings as well. On February 2, 2017 at 11 a.m. the next morning, I arrived at the facility and was told that my storage unit had been broken into. I inquired as to why was I not contacted immediately by phone from the public storage faculty, or district manager who were there when I had arrived about the incident. I then proceeded to call the police department myself to give them a report. One hour later, the police arrived and escorted me to my storage facility. Appropriately, he drew his gun at the unit, advising me to stand by to ensure that it was safe, therefore discovering that my storage unit lock was bolt cut on the storage floor and belongings were ransacked and missing. We then proceeded back to the storage office and spoke with one of the worker. The officer then asked to view the surveillance camera. Upon looking around, the police officer asked if there were cameras inside of the storage building. He was told no. Upon asking why, he was told because the building is old. The officer went on to view the footage. The officer stated he was hoping to catch those responsible on the surveillance cameras. The officer noted that he was not sure if they were operating properly because it only showed one blurry visual of one gate entrance and didn't show the other exit gate. The building had no cameras working inside of the storage units. From all this, I am left to feel unsafe going into the storage facility knowing that there are no cameras causing me to vacate my storage unit. On that one camera, it showed a storage occupant and another person asking them to put in their code so that they could exit the gate, which the occupant did. Innocent storage tenants renting a unit are thinking their valuable property and lives are safe behind locked gates and security cameras. We did not know the only cameras working at the facility are at the front gate office. What if a tenant happens to come onto the property to access their storage unit and it's being burglarized, where they stumble upon the burglar and the tenant is harmed or killed because of the burglar not wanting to be identified? Innocent people are killed during a burglary. And, also there would be no way of knowing who the criminal would be because there are no surveillance cameras on the public storage facility. Another problem is an unsecured fence. A broken piece of wire holds part of the fence together and someone cut a hole in another part which is how thieves gain entry. They are going in there with bolt cutters. These criminals are cutting locks or the metal part holding the lock. They are even renting units, then smashing holes through the walls and climbing into adjoining units in order to steal everything. These criminals knew there were no cameras back there and that there was no security, they could come back there anytime they wanted and that they had all the time in the world to do it. This is why public storage needs to beef up their security, and stop allowing transients to sleep on the property in their cars, which is loitering and against the law, and put cameras down each aisle and install electronic keypad locks on each unit. read more
