I had an incident at the apartment when the tenants discovered a burglary one morning. Some small appliance items were stolen in one of the units. One of the other tenants not burglarized said that in the middle of night before, she saw someone jumped over the front gate. This was around 1 to 2 am.
She didn't see the face because the guy wore a baseball cap. At first she thought it might have been one of the other tenants because of the guy's built. The guy, she assumed, probably just locked himself out.
But then it also crossed her mind that it might have been a burglar. She wanted to shout to catch the guy's attention. But the thought froze her. She was afraid that the burglar would recognize it's an old lady shouting, see her and somehow harm her. Not only that, being petrified, she probably wouldn't even have had the voice to shout in the first place.
And that gave me the thought of giving each of the tenants a whistle just like the one below.
Here are some advantages I can think of:
- It's cheap. A plastic sports whistle costs something like Php15 to Php30 depending on the size.
- It's handy. And with a lanyard, it can be hung just about anywhere. The bedroom would be a logical choice with the whistle by a table or hung at the closet or bedroom door.
- Anybody can use it. You only need a good strong breath to make it work. You hold it, put it in the mouth and blow.
- It's always ready to use. There are no batteries to charge and no switches to fumble just to turn it on. You can even operate it in the dark.
- It easily grabs ATTENTION. A purposeful and determined whistle sound is a standard attention getter. People recognize it as coming from authority: police, security guard, nightwatch, etc. and that typically stops them in their tracks. And hopefully for a burglar, would be enough to change his mind and scoot.
There you have it. A cheap and hopefully effective solution. Happy landlording!
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