The wife and I went with my son yesterday to look at apartments. The office manager asked for all our driver’s licenses prior to taking us to see various floor plans. I showed mine, but when it became apparent she wanted possession of it, I declined. Turns out their policy is to lock your driver license in the desk while showing an apartment. Of course, I told her this wasn’t gonna happen (in any universe I inhabit, anyway) and she would have to be content with a photocopy. Their policy was so strict that I wasn’t allowed on the grounds unless they could retain possession of the license.
Personally, I’m an extremely ardent supporter of property rights, and I don’t care if they demand that all visitors wear bright orange and go barefoot. It’s their property, and they can do whatever they want. I just figured the complex was owned by some loon, and we could go somewhere else to look.
But… apparently this is very common. :eek:
So I ask the SDMB. Why? (I haven’t lived in an apartment since 1984)
A couple years ago we went looking for an apartment for my aged MIL. We visted about 10 places total. About half the places wanted to hold *a *(not everybody’s) driver’s license. I’d never heard of this before & asked why. The answer was that it deterred both mad rapists and bad guys taking the tour to case the apartment complex.
These were all nice apartments in nice suburbs of greater St. Louis. It seemed that the larger the property management company, the more likely they’d adopted this “defense”.
I’ve been renting in and around DC for five years. I’ve always had to surrender my license when touring a building with a manager’s office/leasing office on-site, even in very nice neighborhoods. The only exceptions have been smaller buildings without on-site offices (no good place to lock the license, I guess).
Because of course if you’re going to rape and kill the apartment manager, there’s zero chance you’ll just grab the keys off her dead body, walk back to the office and take back your driver’s license.
Happened to me in Houston and Denver, good reputations in the complexes/neighbourhoods, too, so it’s not necessarily a ‘red flag’ for bad areas. Here in OKC, they usually want to photocopy it, they fill out a form to show any apt.
Even realtors showing houses have sometimes asked for ID verification from me. Also, contractors I sub from have my info on file and will forward ID info to guard stations at gated communities, where I have to then show ID that matches in order to get in to the neighbourhood. When I contract the jobs myself at these types of places, the home owner leaves my name and my company name at the guard station, again my ID must match.
I’m still stumped as to why the license itself is necessary. I offered to allow a photocopy, but she insisted on the actual license.
This violated my “do not allow unknown people any control over my movements” policy. (One of several “unalterable life rules” by which I live). I ended up not taking the tour.
FWIW: The complex itself was not gated. Bad Guys could easily wander through and case the place.
Which is why I said they photocopied it. I know the difference. I was showing that there may be different policies in different places.
My bottom line is, play by their rules or don’t play. Policies might be different in complexes right next to each other. If the place has a policy for showing that makes you uncomfortable, then I guess you won’t be shown any units.
OP asked a question, apparently there’s a lot of YMMV in this thread, as I expected.
I do a lot of wall repair work for a group of apartments here in OKC. All of them owned by an individual in California. He’s a very hands on type of owner, think Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys. All of the complexes but one simply do the photocopy and fill out a form bit before showing. Even the one in a kind of scary area of town. The “but one” complex is a very nice complex, rather high end for apts, and in a great reputation area. Guess what, that complex does the hold your ID bit for showing. Same owner, same city. Go figure.
I could understand keeping a photocopy on record, so as to better be able for the police to track down burglers who used the showing to case the apartment, but I don’t see how simply keeping the original during the showing would help with this.