American victim of burglary at his North Pattaya apartment

[smotherb]

that is why you have to change the locks on any place you rent. 200-500 baht.

locks for sliding glass doors. 200 baht.

and you need a heavy safe that can't be easily carried. 10,000 baht.

strange the thief knew when to hit the place. walked right in. boyfriend of the maid?

and if you are going to rip some place off, wear a baseball cap and a pair of sunglasses.

If you rent another persons property you must get the owners permission to change the locks and also give him a spare set of keys (in case he needs to enter if there was an emergency).

Yeah, and you're not supposed to drive the wrong way down a street, but this is Thailand.

oh yeah, i forgot to mention, hide your stuff when the hookers are visiting.

Old China sailor in Vietnam days gave me the 5-step when taking a girl to your room: 1) strip her down to make sure she is a she, 2) send her to the rain locker, 3) stash your valuables, 4) check the crotch of her panties, and 5) join her in the rain locker.

Never forget #3, and needless to say, if she fails #1 or #4, kick her out.

[banglassie]

In all fairness I'm quite happy my landlord has a spare key, I succeeded to lock myself out 2 times when going to buy water. However, I of curse have 2 extra padlocks like everyone else in the condo.
Our place is quite cheap, 4500/month. I will upgrade some day, but as long as I'm a uni student this suits me and the wife fine. Sure there's always a risk of someone picking the padlocks or simply snip them somehow, but I feel quite safe being surrounded by Nepali housewives as next door neighbor who hears and sees everything. It also help that my wife lived here before I moved for 5 years so everyone kind of know each-other. That being said similar things happen in Bkk as well of course, but something tells me it's more common in patty? Might as well be a prejudice from my side..

[banglassie]

Why is this news? I've lost tons of sh*t on eveeything from buses, trains, boats and hotel rooms. Stuff like this happens. Bad luck for the guy, but surprising? ...

If you don't like reading this then don't freeking read it dummy

Come on, don't be such an old fart. I never said I didn't want to read it, I just pointed out that we could have a thousand of similar stories everyday, "man got robbed on train", "woman lost backpack on boat", "man lost laptop in hotelroom" etc etc etc.

[Rimmer]

Can we stop the trolling and bickering please.

4700 odd people read this topic so it must be of interest to someone.

[blackcab]

The company I work for rents out apartments to (nearly exclusively) Thai people.

We keep spare keys to the door locks but the tenant adds their own padlock. It works well. We can't get in without their knowledge, and if they lock their keys in their room we have a spare to open the door for them.

The odd time they really lose their keys we can cut their padlock off for them then unlock the door. All they need is 1 of our keys to the door and a new padlock. Much cheaper than buying a new lock - although we will always fit a new lock if the tenant wants one.

[KittenKong]

4700 odd people read this topic .....

Wow. That must be nearly all the odd people in Pattaya.

[jacko45k]

If you rent another persons property you must get the owners permission to change the locks and also give him a spare set of keys (in case he needs to enter if there was an emergency).

The first thing I did on moving into my condo was to change the locks. I didnt ask permission. I would never be happy about giving a key to my accommodation to anyone in Thailand, and if I did have to (in case of hospitalisation, for example) I would change the locks again as soon as I was home.

Far too many crooks here, of all skin colours.

I agree. I too have heard of rented condos where someone has gained access due to the management having keys. Firstly you have to trust the management themselves, then their staff and ex staff who may have left with some negativity. I just couldn't trust them to keep the keys secure, nor the building. There is always doubt about the other residents too. I even heard of people having their safe robbed when they were asleep in the room, sounded incredulous to me but I had no reason to doubt the guy telling me.

[ableguy]

Suppose he never thought about insurance

Insurance just maybe the key here, however when I tried for home owners insurance two companies stated computers , I pads and phones not included in policy, apparently too many false claims.

[trogers]

that is why you have to change the locks on any place you rent. 200-500 baht.

locks for sliding glass doors. 200 baht.

and you need a heavy safe that can't be easily carried. 10,000 baht.

strange the thief knew when to hit the place. walked right in. boyfriend of the maid?

and if you are going to rip some place off, wear a baseball cap and a pair of sunglasses.

If you rent another persons property you must get the owners permission to change the locks and also give him a spare set of keys (in case he needs to enter if there was an emergency).

Yeah, and you're not supposed to drive the wrong way down a street, but this is Thailand.

oh yeah, i forgot to mention, hide your stuff when the hookers are visiting.

Where to hide anything when you have to get your pants down?

[trogers]

I went home in mid June and was only away for a month. When I got back here to central Pattaya the padlock had been cut off so it was a good job I had changed the deadlock. Management said there was someone breaking into other rooms. I'll never know the truth but I'll never trust anyone here. !

Your building is too HiSo to install CCTV?

[KittenKong]

Your building is too HiSo to install CCTV?

CCTV in Thailand is often broken, or so badly designed/installed that it doesn't show anything recognisable anyway.