There are many benefits that come from living in an apartment building or a condominium. Most well maintained apartment buildings have many amenties including swimming pool and recreation center, communal BBQ, and on-premise mailboxes.
Apartment buildings and condominiums also have bullet-in boards where announcements, advertisements, and other notices can be posted and shared with neighbors.
One of the challenges that many apartment or condominium dwellers describe is letting giving temporary access to friends, mail man, cleaners, house-sitters, airbnb guests, and others into the building.
There are several simple ways to exchange keys with those you want to have temporary access to the building. This can be done in a secure and private way:
-
Lockboxes
You can buy a lockbox from a near by hardware store, and put a key and a tag in the lockbox with your guest. However, lockboxes are problematic. Often, it is hard to tell which lockbox belongs to whom. Plus, they often malfunction in cold, rain, or extreme heat situations.
-
BuzzerBoy
Since you are on BuzzerBoy website, and we don’t mean to brag, but you can also use BuzzerBoy to simplify your key exchange. Using the BuzzerBoy app or portal, you can create a passcode. Its an English word chosen at random from a dictionary. You can give this passcode to your guest. When they arrive, they simply dial your intercom code from the building lobby, and authenticate themselves using the passcode you gave them. You can change, or deactivate the passcode using your smartphone or computer at anytime. You can also deactivate BuzzerBoy at anytime using the app or portal, and it will be done in real-time.
-
Friends or Neighbors
You can also trust your friendly neighbor to give keys to your guest when they arrive. This works sometimes, but can also be problematic. You have to depend on your friend or neighbors availability. You often also have to compensate them with a beer, or coffee.
-
Co-Hosts and Virtual Assistants
You may or may not be a fan of AirBnB. Short-term rentals, and AirBnB is hit and miss in the society today, but its hard to not recognize the abundance of these in the community. One implication of AirBnB and short-term rental market, in general, is the creation of a new industry of people that simply support AirBnB hosts for a small fee. AirBnB calls them Co-Hosts, but they are generally known a Virtual Assistants or VA’s for short.
Even if your apartment or condominium does not allow AirBnB, you can still use services from Co-hosts or VA’s to help with your key exchange, even if it has nothing to do with AirBnB or Short-term rentals.