Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Coho common houses built to public-building standards

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

> Gee, I never thought about locks or not on the common house.  What are the
> experiences of others as far as finding a need to lock the common house
> doors?

We have a security system with codes. It has been a fairly long process of
getting it working predictably. One we are still working on. Most recently
the sun shining on it has caused unpredictable results -- and the sun moves
so how do we fix that? Before the codes we had keys and I much preferred the
keys but the fear is that they will be lost so codes are safer.

Half our units open onto walkways that lead into the commonhouse without
going through a locked entrance. I like that very much and often avoid going
out to the units where I have to use a code to get back in.

In an urban area, most of our people would not be comfortable with unlocked
doors. Theft is not the biggest issue -- it's personal danger and danger for
the children. The fear that someone could get into the commonhouse and hide.
There are times where the commonhouse presents a perfect isolated setting
for assaults, etc.

We also have petty theft over night if things (bikes, etc.) are left outside
unlocked. Someone is casing the joint so unlocked doors would get around the
neighborhood very fast.

A funny conversation -- a member of the security team recently asked me how
secure our web site was and if we should store any information about the
security system online. The conversation ended on the note that the security
system is so hard to program, unprogram, and keep programmed that posting
all the information would be perfectly safe because there are much easier
ways to break into the commonhouse.

Sharon
-- 
Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org


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