Rising crime rates in Buenos Aires

I love the irony that, having made her money by inviting men to objectify her body, she now teaches courses for men on such subjects as how not to objectify.

On Sunday morning, it was about 8:30-9 am when I left the apartment to go to the bakery 2 blocks away. I noticed the door that leads to the building's roof was open (we live on the top floor, so our hallway has a ladder to access a heavy iron door through which we can access the roof for maintenance).

When I returned a few minutes later, it was still open. It seemed odd, and ss soon as my husband woke up, I told him about it. It was off because it was Sunday morning and that door is usually used to access the water tanks on the roof for their routine cleaning... which would never take place on a weekend.

I thought it may have been due to the strong wind, but my husband said 'no way, it weighs a ton!'. He himself went on the roof on Saturday night (via our terrace) because the shadow was misplaced by the strong wind.

Therefore, my husband guessed it was our neighbor - the building architect- , as he had been away for a few weeks and perhaps there was something on his roof to check. However, it seemed odd that he was doing it on a Sunday morning... and so early in the morning.

A few days later, i.e. yesterday, the Whatsapp group among the owners and the building Administrator reported that a neighbor (as in from a nearby building) had requested to share our building's recording. We had cameras installed in the building hallway from the street to the elevator, after a bike theft a few years ago. It is not clear what happened (likely, a burglary). However, I am very shaken as from the roof you can hop onto our terrace, where we just have two glass doors to protect us against a burglar.

The worst part is that I went out on Saturday morning and the door was closed, and we stayed home all day as my husband fell sick with the a strong cold, but we didn't hear a peep. You can usually tell when the heavy iron roof door is opened because it creeks.

It used to have a lock, but since it was an issue whenever the tank cleaners came while the building cleaner was off duty (only two copies of the key, someone else had to be available during the tank cleaning), it was removed. Now, my neighbor-the architect has temporarily blocked the roof door with 100 kg of sand bags (which apparently were already on the roof for some reason) until a blacksmith can come to lock again the door.

It is not clear if the alleged burglar accessed our building from the roof to escape from the street door, or if they accessed the roof through an insider in our own building to enter the neighbor's property. We don't know which neighbor has requested the record, nor what crime was committed. As usual, the uncertainty and lack of details is killing me.

On top of that, the owner where he hard disk of the recording is stored, is away until next week.

If someone committed a crime to you, be a good neighbor and let the others know what to expect!!! FFS!

The door not having a lock is just asking for trouble if you ask me.

The issue with a shared building is that no one gives a fuck until they are hurt. At that point, it becomes top priority, but the momentum quickly fades as the other owners don't feel the same concern/urgency for a change.

When there was a sport bike theft, cameras were installed. It was the second installation as the first ones (installed some time before we moved here, likely after an incident) stopped worked and since nothing happened afterwards, no one felt worth fixing them (i.e. pay for maintenance to come and set it up again).

After the bike theft, new cameras were installed, as the old non-working ones were not providing sharp images, anyway, and technology had improved. These new cameras are supposed to have LED lights to provide further lighting to record, in case the regular lamps are off. Also, apparently there is an alarm set in case someone with a disguised face enters the hallway, but no one see that alarms because we never agreed who should have access to the recording due to privacy concerns. The administrator didn't want the extra responsibility and they don't have security personnel 24/7 looking at our cameras/alarms, anyway. The bike theft was an insider job, and the friend of the insider was wearing a hood and sunglasses while he took the sport bikes away through the street door.

The anti-theft system is worth as the one at the Louvre's, as to save money it was decided that the newly installed camera would connect to the WiFi network of the ground floor unit. At the time, it was where the legitimate sport bike owners lived, so they happily agreed to provide the WiFi connection. But two months after the fact, they asked to be compensated to "share" part of their Wifi bandwidth for the security camera. To which we all agreed, as setting up a dedicated landline would have been more expensive. Now, the apartment has been vacant for months because they moved to a different family's unit and they cannot agree on who is going to use the apartment in our building.

As an extra security precaution, the lock of the main gate (street gate) was also changed after the bike theft. There have been talks for YEARS of using RFID tags which would record which tag was sled and when. Regularly, this comes up during HOA meetings, but until something negative happens, it is forgotten because it would mean higher expenses to install the system. However, when it was clear that the RFID tag system could be also used to track when each owner/tenant would leave and come back, it was considered a security issue for us, too, so the idea was quickly dismissed. Therefore, no RFID tag was ever installed - which is a shame, as it would have been helpful in this case.

We had a non-working intercom for about 2 years as first the technicians were scammers and didn't fix anything, then when a good technician came, the a**hole who rents apartment no. 9 wasn't home to let the technician in into his unit. Apparently, the system is interconnected so that each unit depends on the others (can they still made series-connections instead of parallels, in this time and age? One would not think so).

Hence, this meant another (paid) technician visit and several attempts before he was able to check and fix all 11 units. One owner lives part-time in France, and she doesn't trust anyone with her keys, so we had to wait for her to come back from her French trip before the technician was able to check and fix her intercom. Then the ass***e in unit 9 kept saying he was not available to let the technician in.... until it was found that he was at home, he just didn't want to get up before noon. ASS****E!!!!

My solution was very simple: replace the old wired intercom for a new one with a wireless camera and an access code. My husband forbade me to even propose it formally, as if the RFID tag system was never voted in (for a decade), imagine an ever more expensive and technologically advanced solution!!!

Thankfully the missus doesn't have many problems with the BA apartment. She does have suspicions about the female administrator when it comes to the cost of getting work done in the building though.

Quote from UK Man

The door not having a lock is just asking for trouble if you ask me.

Yes if the roof access is only needed for maintenance and inspection, then it should be locked. Spend the money on 4 copies of the keys so you, and 2 other owners have that.

Quote from Splinter

Trying to get residents of apartment blocks to agree on anything is a daunting challenge. My wife reluctantly attends resident meetings on behalf of her elderly mum and they can go on for hours with lots of shouting and gesticulation with nothing ever being achieved.

Insisting on a door lock would appear to be such a simple task!

I can believe that. My missus attended the last one and less than a dozen owners turned up. The Administrator suggested it was time to paint the outside of the building which looks fine to me. The majority grudgingly agreed so she said she'll get some tenders in. My wife chimed in and told her she'd better get in touch with the majority of owners who didn't attend the meeting to see what they thought first before going ahead with it. She was rather miffed which has made my wife even more suspicious of her.

Quote from Splinter

Trying to get residents of apartment blocks to agree on anything is a daunting challenge.

You can say so!!

The roof door/manhole had a lock. The issues were:

1. having a copy of the key meant being available to unlock it when inspection/maintenance was due. Argentines hate commitments, especially far ahead in time. To their defense, it must also be said that maintenance personnel rarely comes when they are supposed to. So a 60 mins inspection may mean to remain available all morning to open and close the manhole/door.
2. having a copy of the key meant being responsible of not losing it. Argentines are chaotic, and they can't guarantee they won't lose it.
3. having a copy of the key meant that in case of issues/troubles, they could be held at suspicion. For example, had this incident happened anyway, the first suspects would have been those with a copy of the key. No one wants that responsibility.

We had the same issue with the common mailbox at the front gate. At first, only the administrator, the cleaning guy and my neighbor-architect had a key. Usually, when the cleaning guy comes in (twice a week) he collects the mail and shove it under each unit's door. However, this meant waiting for days for the letters go from the mailbox at the street level to the recipients' door. This was an issue in case of certified mail that needs to be hand-delivered by the mailman or collected at the post office, as the recipient was not aware of the attempted delivery/of their mail waiting to be collected at the post office. Note: to collect the mail at the post office, you must bring in the collection notice which is locked in the mailbox.

Therefore, since this solution seemed not very effective for time-sensitive mail, I asked to be given a copy of the key to the neighbor-architect. His first answer was "no" because it wasn't him whom I should ask to. Instead, I had to make formal request to the administrator, so that they could properly keep track of who has a copy of the key.

I also didn't want to bugger my neighbor every time I could see mail in the mailbox but I couldn't check if it was directed to me. After a week, someone slipped a copy of the key under my apartment door. I am not sure if it was administrator or my neighbor or the cleaning guy. It felt such a big achievement! Now I can regularly check my mail, and I even hand it to my neighbor-architect and tell him if he has a mail/parcel to collect at the post office.

serafina , what a terribly insecure feeling for you, with such easy access to your apartment from the roof! Does the building next to yours share a wall with your building, allowing access to your roof from there? Or is the only access from inside your building?

Quote from Rice

serafina , what a terribly insecure feeling for you, with such easy access to your apartment from the roof! Does the building next to yours share a wall with your building, allowing access to your roof from there? Or is the only access from inside your building?

You can access our roof from an adjacent building, which is a garage/silos. Our balcony can also be accessed by a different neighbor's roof, the one that was built illegally a few years ago and the reason why we have an electric fence on our balcony.

In fact, my husband himself was able to cross from our balcony to the neighbor's roof, and from there jump forward onto the roof of the neighbor's in front of us, when he had to rescue our fugitive kitten.

No husband or kitten was armed. But I seriously considered I would become a widower for a second.

What a heroic rescue!

Can anything be done about the roof access from the garage? Or is that not a security risk?

I am afraid there is nothing that can be done. Back to back buildings are a thing in cities, and we should just live with it. But the frightening part, for me, was to have a criminal on the loose within our building.

Definitely. Wondering if he had a key to the front entrance? If he had an accomplice in the building with access to the key to the rooftop? If he was scared away before breaking in to apartments, but could return later?

Quote from serafina

I am afraid there is nothing that can be done. Back to back buildings are a thing in cities, and we should just live with it. But the frightening part, for me, was to have a criminal on the loose within our building.

Adjoining roofs is the norm here as well.

We bought the house next door as it was a security risk especially when we lived in the UK. It used to be rented out to every Tom Dick and Harry so we never knew who'd be in it every time we came on holiday.

Quote from Rice

Definitely. Wondering if he had a key to the front entrance? If he had an accomplice in the building with access to the key to the rooftop? If he was scared away before breaking in to apartments, but could return later?

It seems that it either had an accomplish in our building who let them in as a regular guest from the main entrance, and gave them access to the roof. Or it was someone who had someone inside the building letting him out from the street door.

When they stole the sport bike, they had an accomplish in the building who let them in through the street door, handed them the bike, and left from the same street door. I don't think it was a scam (i.e. it was sold as their own bike), as they both had hoods and a cap. I think a temporary tenant saw the bike was not locked in the hallway and "arranged" with an accomplish to hand it over, sell it, and split the revenue.

Do these same people, possible accomplices, still live in the building, serafina ?

Quote from Rice

Do these same people, possible accomplices, still live in the building, serafina ?

This is hard to say. Although there are just 11 units in our building, only 3 are lived in by their owners (we, the architect across us, and the lady who lives in France most of the year). The other 8 are up for long and short term rental, depending on the unit.

We think the short term ones are the one more troublesome, in general. We had party-throwers, drunk party-goers who broke the mirror in the lift or jumped in the lift and blocked it, pot smoking parties that pestered the hallway and the ventilation sewer system with their rotten pot, and the thieves or thieves' friends.

I can't find the other units on Airbnb, besides the one next to ours, so they must use a local agency which perhaps deals with local guests. The one on Airbnb, which is also the most beautifuls one, is the one next to ours and usually we have tourists from abroad, mostly from the US and Europe. Perhaps, if guests also have a profile on a platform, it is easier to vet them. Local agencies do not get the perks of knowing a potential renter's 'rap sheet'.

Another potential issue is that owners who rent, tend to invest no money in their units, which attract worse tenants if they are let run down. These landlords also do not support initiatives to improve the building (painting, security, fixing the intercom etc.) as they don't benefit from those.

When we bought our apartment, also the one next door was up for sale. It belonged to an English man who had bought 3 during the real estate crisis. However, it was pretty bare and not maintained. In fact, it was cheaper than ours, and with a worse terrace. The guy who bought it completely renovated it, as he was a criminal lawyer from a wealthy family who wanted to live there himself.

However, he stayed here only for a couple of years, as then he moved to Bariloche for work/personal life reasons. Since then, it has been managed by a STR company that advertises it on Airbnb. I have fun reading the guests reviews to see if they mention they nice neighbors.