01 / Patrol
Mobile patrol
Marked cars stopping by overnight, never on a set schedule.
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Guide
Patrol or a full-time officer?
Both work. They just solve different problems. Here’s how to tell which one your building has.
What each one is.
A full-time officer stays in your building for the whole shift, watching the door, walking the floors and dealing with whatever comes up. Patrol is a marked car that stops by several times a night, never on the same schedule, checks the doors and garage and moves on.
The officer gives you constant presence. Patrol gives you frequent, unpredictable check-ins for a lot less money.
When you want someone there.
Residential lobbies, hotels and office buildings with late tenants have people coming and going all night. Someone needs to see who’s walking in and deal with problems on the spot. A patrol car can’t do that from the curb.
A full-time officer is also the right move right after a break-in or when there’s something valuable inside.
When patrol does the job.
A lot of buildings in the city are empty at night: SoMa offices, neighborhood storefronts, smaller warehouses in Dogpatch. There’s nobody to check in, so paying for a full shift is hard to justify.
Patrol covers them well. Officers in marked cars mix up their timing, check doors, gates and garage entries and log every stop. How many stops depends on your budget and the building, and you can adjust once you’ve read a few weeks of logs.
Doing both.
Plenty of San Francisco buildings use both: an officer at the desk until late evening, patrol overnight. Others post an officer at the main property and add patrol stops at smaller buildings nearby.
Live camera monitoring fills in the gaps, with cameras watched all night and patrol sent when something shows up.
Figuring it out.
Three questions get you most of the way: Is anyone in the building overnight? Has something already happened? How much is there to cover? Bring those to a free walkthrough and we’ll put both options side by side in writing. And since everything is month to month, nothing is locked in.
A few useful answers
Quick answers.
Is patrol cheaper than a full-time officer?
In almost every case, because you’re paying for visits instead of a whole shift.
Can we start with patrol and move up later?
Yes, anytime. No long-term contract.
Services
Services this guide covers
02 / On-site
Security guard services
An officer at the door who knows who belongs and notices who doesn’t.
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