Steel boxes is latest method to secure vacant properties

A growing number of property owners are throwing metal coverings over windows and doors to prevent thieves, vandals and vagrants from breaking in. The homes become steel fortresses, with virtually impenetrable metal sheaths blocking every potential entry point.

It's a relatively new option for Atlanta property owners. The nation's leading purveyor of metal door and window covers, Chicago-based Vacant Property Security, entered the Atlanta market in late 2007.

Since then, the company, known as VPS, has secured 1,200 houses and apartments in the Atlanta area, mostly in lower-income neighborhoods inside the Perimeter. Most customers are banks, which are foreclosing on homes at record rates.

The real estate market is so depressed that homes often sit vacant for months, leaving them vulnerable to break-ins. Thieves take whatever they can cart off — appliances, cabinets, toilets, copper pipes, said Ryan Stoll, a credit analyst with IronStone Bank in Atlanta. Damage can top $25,000 per home, he said.

Stoll says that justifies the expense of the VPS system, which costs about $225 to install and carries a weekly rental fee of about $53. About a dozen IronStone-owned homes are now secured with VPS equipment, he said, most in rough neighborhoods south and west of downtown Atlanta. None of the homes have been broken into.

But shrouding houses in metal is a drastic step Stoll said he takes only reluctantly.

"The big problem with these systems, they make the areas look unsafe," he said. "If you think about it, if you see a bunch of steel windows and doors, it really doesn't look that appealing."

One of IronStone's homes is a tidy bungalow on Lawton Avenue in southwest Atlanta's Oakland City neighborhood. The street has been hard hit by foreclosures. At one intersection alone, seven homes are boarded up with plywood, and three others have VPS metal coverings.

The abandoned property provides a bleak view from the front stoop of Erica Shinholster's house.

The VPS covers "look better than boarding with wood, but I think there's just too many abandoned homes on this street," said Shinholster, 22, who has lived on Lawton for a year with her 4-year-old daughter and 2-year-old son.

"The fact that they have to board anything up, cover anything up, makes me want to leave the area," she said.

VPS, which bought out its only Atlanta competitor last year, says only one in 1,000 homes secured with its equipment is broken into. That's usually because thieves punch a hole in the house wall, not by breaching the security covers, said Nicholas Wilkins, the company's Atlanta sales manager.

The installation process takes three to four hours, Wilkins said. Doors are removed and replaced with 14-gauge steel doors that resemble bank vaults. Windows are covered with metal screens, some with decorative decals to mimic shutters. Property owners are given access codes to open doors.