Sixty hours during which no one is watching
At a redevelopment site in Rotterdam-Zuid, the last foreman leaves around 5:30 p.m. on Friday afternoon. The construction fence is locked—or at least that’s the plan—because one section remains open for a delivery scheduled for early Monday morning. Inside are twelve heat pumps that won’t be installed for another two weeks. Until 7:00 a.m. on Monday, no one with business here will be coming in—for over sixty hours.
Security during periods of vacancy and renovations revolves around precisely those hours: the moments when a location is full of valuables, yet the daytime surveillance that is normally a given has completely disappeared.
Security during periods of vacancy and renovations is a different field
By “security during vacancy and renovations,” we mean the temporary, flexible deployment of personnel and technology at locations that temporarily lose their normal function: from surveillance and property security to video monitoring. Such a location exists in a state of transition. What it once was is behind it; what it will become exists, for now, only on paper.
During the day, this transitional phase is managed by the people who work there: a foreman notices a door that’s open when it should be closed; an installer speaks to someone he doesn’t recognize. That informal oversight disappears the moment the last bus leaves the premises.
What remains is an environment where the distinction between normal and unusual behavior blurs. An open gate might be part of the schedule; a van on the premises at 10 p.m. could belong to a subcontractor who forgot his tools. That makes these locations attractive to people with malicious intent, because unusual behavior simply goes unnoticed there.
The risks are very real. When it comes to renovations, theft is the primary concern: copper pipes, tools, heat pumps, and solar panels almost always disappear during the hours when no one is looking. Given current delivery times, the loss of a batch of installation materials can set the schedule back by several weeks.
When a property is vacant, the main concerns are vandalism, unauthorized visitors, and damage that goes unnoticed for a long time—such as a burst pipe that leaves water running for days. Insurers are well aware of these risks and often impose additional requirements for monitoring and inspection in the event of long-term vacancy. Those who fail to meet these requirements usually don’t realize it until a claim is filed.
Our patrol cars are already out there anyway
SERIS is the market leader in mobile surveillance in Dordrecht and Rotterdam. This is relevant for temporary security for a practical reason: our surveillance vehicles are already patrolling the area.
A patrol of a construction site or a vacant building becomes part of a route that is already in use, keeping costs manageable and ensuring a short response time in the event of an alarm, even in the middle of the night.
The procedure varies by location. A final inspection at the end of the workday ensures that fences, doors, and windows are actually closed—which is by no means a given on a construction site where multiple contractors are working side by side.
Patrols at varying times prevent a predictable pattern from developing that someone could anticipate. If an alert is received, it is followed up by a security guard who is familiar with the location. Each patrol is logged and reported back, so that a project manager doesn’t have to guess on Monday morning what happened at his site over the weekend.
The construction industry’s summer break lasts three weeks, but the risk doesn’t
No renovation project goes according to the original schedule. One week, deliveries are made daily, while the same site lies abandoned for three weeks during the construction industry’s summer break. During the finishing phase, a building is suddenly filled with materials that, on a Friday afternoon, barely fit into a van. We therefore tailor our deployment to the needs of each phase. During quiet periods, security patrols with alarm response are sufficient. As soon as theft-prone materials arrive on site, our services can be expanded to include on-site security: a security guard who is present when the risk is highest. If the project runs over schedule, we extend our security coverage accordingly. If a phase is completed early, we scale back our services. This way, a client pays only for what the situation actually requires.
Stay in control, even when you're not there
For anyone responsible for a property or project, it ultimately comes down to control. Missing materials directly impact the schedule and budget, while an incident at a vacant property can affect the insurance coverage or the relationship with the municipality and nearby residents. Well-organized temporary security prevents a large portion of that damage and also provides something that is often underestimated: information. Anyone who monitors the patrol reports knows the status of their location without having to get in the car themselves. We also believe that a temporary assignment deserves the same level of quality as a long-term contract. Even a three-month assignment at SERIS is assigned a dedicated point of contact in the region and is carried out by screened, certified security guards.
In a market where not every provider takes the collective bargaining agreement and regulations equally seriously, this is less obvious than it sounds. The cheapest quote for a temporary job has often turned out to be the most expensive for the client.
"Temporary" rarely turns out to be temporary
This may well be the most underrated benefit. By visiting the same location for weeks on end, a security guard gains insight into how that location operates: which entry points are vulnerable and at what times certain activities take place. That knowledge doesn’t disappear the day a building is handed over or put back into use.
In practice, we therefore regularly see that a partnership that begins with security during a vacancy or renovation subsequently transitions into regular security for the location. The nature of the service changes—from construction site security to, for example, regular patrols or property security—while the knowledge gained is retained. For a client, this means that after completion, they continue working with a provider that already knows their location inside and out.
Is a renovation planned, or will a building soon be vacant? Visit seris.nl to learn more about our mobile surveillance and property security services. Feel free to contact us to discuss what your location needs during this phase.
