...

[Dreaded Claymore]

(2) just shoot and don't hesitate.

Have you been paying attention?! If he had done that, he would have shot the plumber!

[gravedigger]

I almost get to the door and I hear the distinct sounds of someone trying to open the door from the outside.

A few thoughts ...

1. Have a slide bolt INside that locks the door even if the locks which are accessible from the OUTside can be unlocked with a key. The inside bolt will logically NOT be locked when you are not at home, and will prevent such unannounced entry when you are.

2. Loudly calling through the door, "Who is there?" would have stopped/scared away a burglar and caused the plumber to announce himself.

3. Peep hole.

4. CCTV camera above/near door. Monitor inside.

5. A simple note on the door:

"Maintenance: KNOCK FIRST before entering apartment, and wait for a response. Your life may depend on it."

or

"WARNING: Any unannounced, unexpected or unidentified entry into this apartment will be met with DEADLY FORCE."

or

"ATTENTION! The doorbell button to your left could save your life!"


Any trophy shop can engrave a small plastic sign for you. it will prevent a situation like this from happening again.

[joepamjohn]

Originally Posted by j1133s

So, here's BG (you think) trying to open your door and you actually open it for him/her? Don't do that, make the BG work harder

Also, when the gun is out, it means the situation is serious, so (1) don't stand next to the door where you think the BG is (in your case) and (2) just shoot and don't hesitate.

[/B]

People like you give a bad name to gun owners.

Agreed, these threads are all too common and so are the same replies. It's a wonder we have any gun rights left at all.

[Spiggy]

I once pulled my shotgun on a bunch of painters. They were moving my furniture around and didn't want to wake me. When moving my shelf, they dropped a bucket of coins sitting on a shelf.

When I opened my eyes, there were 3 guys in boots and jumpsuits wearing face masks and latex gloves moving my stuff. There was plastic being laid over the carpet and none of them spoke English.



At the business end of my winchester, one guy got on his knees with his hands on his head, crying.

Luckily, my aunt was talking to their boss outside, heard the commotion and ran in screaming "No! No! They're painters! We're going to paint the house!"

what the hell, this is news to me...

[negolien]

BTW you guys are wrong on the entry the Landlord has every legal right to enter your premises with a 24 hour notice of inspection.

[TurboChrisB]

EVERY standardized rental agreement (CONTRACT) allows for the owner/manager to enter with written notice in advance.

[prob]

A huge over reaction I'd say......

It's not like you weren't told the guy was going to show up. It's a good thing you didn't shoot him. Maybe, just maybe, you should think twice about owning guns if you have such hair-trigger responses.

[tokarev_tt]

A huge over reaction I'd say......

It's not like you weren't told the guy was going to show up. It's a good thing you didn't shoot him. Maybe, just maybe, you should think twice about owning guns if you have such hair-trigger responses.

THIS

[Kynoch]

As a plumber that works on apartments take a chill pill. You knew there was a chance he was coming in that day and you still freaked out? My advice to you is move to a safer complex. I have to go into poeples apts all the time sometimes they wake up after I am already working on there pluming. I always ask the manager to let me in though.

No kidding!

I wouldn't enter an apartment without prior notice and without a knock on the door and "MAINTENANCE!" with plenty of time.

[Kynoch]

ROFL.. I had a similar experience a couple years ago. I work nights alot so sleep during the day getting up about 9pm usually. So... Here I' am sound asleep w/ bedroom door closed and locked. I hear someone make entry to my apt. and start making alot of noise w/ no announcement of maint. or anything. Need less to say I jumped up in my tidy whiteys grabbed my Glock 20 came out the bedroom door chambering a round ready to do some damage. I thought the poor maint. guys was gonna slip on the poo coming out of the legs of his pants as he was backing out of the apt. w/ a quickness rofl. I felt bad for him but immediately went down and ripped the manager a new one. It was some random fire alarm inspection and they have a no entry alert in my file so not sure what the guys deal was. Lucky for the poor maint. guy that I was looking for a weapon before engaging him or he'd have had a few rather large holes in his middle section eh lol.

You were going to kill someone for entering your apartment?

[Kynoch]

A huge over reaction I'd say......

It's not like you weren't told the guy was going to show up. It's a good thing you didn't shoot him. Maybe, just maybe, you should think twice about owning guns if you have such hair-trigger responses.

I agree...

[CHS]

Shooting through the door would have been "a huge over reaction"... Having a loaded gun just out of sight was not.

Maybe you should change the title then from "nearly shot the plumber" to "a plumber really scared me bad".

[silverbenz]

I gotta get a word or five in on this subject.

I'm a general contractor, and my biggest client, for several years, has been a large property mgt. company.

Both my own staff and a number of my subs work daily on rental units - mostly single family homes.

I just can't believe that given ANY form of notice that a sevice person MIGHT be accessing their home, the OP would answer / meet him @ the door armed w/ a weapon ! This scares the crap outta me....this could have just as easily been me or one of my employees.

I guess one must always consider "might need to come in" to mean, "is going to have to come in". who the he11 wants to shoot the plumber? after all, I know i'd prefer not have an upstairs neighbor's bio-waste dripping on my head whilst i sleep.

Now, please understand that my people won't let themselves into anyone's home unless MY office has first spoke with the client's tenants and recieved an OK to enter each time they have to go. This is for the safety of my employees, and also a common courtesy. It's a policy that works very well all around, and there has not been any sort of incident to date.

We also won't provide service if only childeren / minors are home. I have had occupants leave the house midway through a job and they leave their kids behind. my policy is simple. we stop them and tell the adult(s) that policy requires us to leave if no adult is home - and someone needs to wait if they want us to finish - If not, we leave RIGHT THEN, DONE OR NOT. I simply will not accept this liability ; further, we are tradesmen, not a daycare.

(also BTW -WTF is wrong with any parent that would leave their 16 yo daughter home alone with ANY strange guy! I have 3 teens 18,17,15 at home; no dude is left alone with them, ever.)

I won't allow work to be performed if anything poses a hazard to my workers (agressive dogs, intoxicated / abusive tenants, etc.)

I occasionally come across a person that declares that the -whatever- is not working, we may not enter their home unsupervised, and that they all work so much that they will only be home after 8 PM saturday and "you'll just have to come out then to fix it."

Okay by me - We'd LOVE the overtime - but my client won't pay the overtime rate for the sake of sheer occupant convienience... so who's going to pay the $ 120.00 / hr difference, 'cause someone must if i've got to work late;
All workers expect, and deserve to recieve, extra compensation from their employers for extra / late hour work. so do we.

I know what the typical apartment complex does regarding employment and work standards....typically poor workmanship and unskilled workers. not always- but often (I started this career in apartment work, oh-so-long ago)
I don't condone or allow any of the typical practices associated with the typical apartment complex. We are a licensed, bonded, and insured professional corporation. I background check every hire, and I carry a 1 million / 2 million gen. liability insurance policy. I pay my staff well above average. None of mine are going to go in to a residence and steal a TV; if it's in the way we won't even move it around to work on the building - you move it / protect it, or no work is done.

It is easy for people to forget that tradespeople are only there to solve a problem or improve a condition for them (or for the neighbors)....
we sincerely want to improve where you live, make sure everyone involved is happy, and go home to our families when we are done; but if the resident makes it dangerous or difficult for us to work, we always have other work to do... nobody I know would want to work in a house if the resident is going to stand behind them with a go***mn gun pointed at 'em....

also please remember that at the end of my day, I go home and I have working electricity, MY toilet flushes well, **** isn't leaking through MY roof , and everything at MY house looks just fine.

[tankarian]

Yeah... whatever. I knew he was coming to the apartment UPSTAIRS from mine and I was told that he MIGHT need to come in here. It wasn't definite that he'd need to come in here at all. A fact that many have missed, I guess.

Time frame was also WAY off. Manager clearly told me that I'd have to let him in... and that he wouldn't be able to let himself in. I still don't have an explanation as to how he ended up with the keys.

Shooting through the door would have been "a huge over reaction"... Having a loaded gun just out of sight was not.

Next time when you think about pointing a gun at the plumber take in consideration the legal consequences of shooting an unarmed person who doesn't pose any threat to you. That would be a 20 year vacation served in a California prison.

The law in California says you cannot shoot anybody who doesn't represent an immediate threat against your life. Even if the person is inside your home, and even if the person broke in with the intent to help himself from your personal belongings.
As long as the intruder is not armed and he doesn't come at you with the intent to harm you, YOU MAY NOT SHOOT HIM.

[BamBam-31]

Door was deadbolted. Knob & deadbolt were both locked. Standard lock, city code prevents me from having a double-key type. He had the friggin keys! I wasn't told he would have the keys. This was not the arrangement. This was not what I agreed to. These were not the instructions I gave the manager, to give to him. He did not identify himself in any way and did not answer the challenge. He just tried to get my door open.

State law actually requires 24 hours notice and full detailed disclosure to the renter. This would be the part that requires them to tell me that a service technician would have the keys or not.

Moving would run (roughly) $4K. First, last, deposit, truck rental, lost wages, etc. Then there's the inevitably higher rent. I'm happy to take donations? Anyone? No? Ah well...

Still working on the camera idea. Just so I can safely see who's on the other side of the door. Like the cage suggestion. None of the interior door have locks and I swear they're about as strong as Balsa, so locks might slow someone down. Deadbolt is always locked, no matter if we're home or not. Guns are locked and hidden when we're gone, unlocked and accessible when we're home.

As a Landlord, I'll have to chime in w/ the others that say you need a or two. We're required to give you a 24 hr. notice (pretty sure "plumber has keys" isn't required info), and the guy should have knocked and announced himself (I always do), sure. Nevertheless, you're living in an APARTMENT COMPLEX--get used to the occasional intrusions. Given a choice, we wouldn't do them.