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Alleged Burglar Caught With 100 House Keys (BTW, Are All Your Keys Accounted For?)

When 50-year-old ex-con Luis Torres was busted for allegedly committing a string of burglaries in fancy Manhattan neighborhoods, police say they found over 100 keys to other apartments in his crib. 100 keys! Now they're going through and trying to figure out how many other places he may have robbed, and the Daily News reports that cops also found bent credit cards, a "treasure trove" of jewelry, and other electronic devices in his home.

Torres, who resides on Central Park North, is accused of grand larceny for allegedly robbing three apartments in Manhattan. None of the robberies showed any sign of forced entry, and prosecutors tell the Post he would only steal a select few items, so that his victims would not immediately realize they'd been burgled. Torres's DNA was in NYPD records because of his previous convictions, and he was apprehended this time because DNA on a towel in one of the apartments was matched to him. Of course, there's a simple explanation for all this!

According to court papers Torres told cops, "I gave the towel you found to a friend who told me he did the job." With friends like these, eh Torres? But Torres's vast key collection got us thinking about the same thing we always think about as we're drifting off to sleep with every light in the apartment on and a machete under the pillow: How many other former tenants have keys to our apartments? And isn't there some law requiring landlords to change the locks every time someone new moves in?

No, there is not some law. According to the New York Housing Authority, the landlord just has to collect the keys from the previous tenant, who was certainly not some homicidal axe-wielding key-copying psychopath, so nothing to worry about there. We spoke to one landlord in East Harlem who told us, "Absent a requirement in the new lease, a landlord is not required to change locks between tenants. However, while most tenants are required by the terms of the lease to surrender all keys, a prudent landlord would change the lock in order to ensure the safety of the new tenant and to prevent any chance of the landlord being liable for failure to secure all keys from the prior tenant." See, as long as you have a prudent landlord, there's nothing to worry about! Sleep tight, one person on earth in that category!

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Comments [rss]

  • D.B

    Wow, Let me catch someone breaking into my home keys or not that M*thaF*%ka will not leave alive ! The cops will find his body Broken, & beaten to a bloody pulp, Both arms , and legs broken in muliple locations . His nose torn partially off , The wife will cut his pants off and shove a pack firecrackers up his ass and lite the fuse ! And every f*ken tooth out his mouth !  Homey Don't play dat Shit !!!!

  • XZ

    The link does not go to the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) website but to the Rent Guidelines Board website, and the guidelines are from the Department of Housing Preservation & Development (HPD), not NYCHA.

  • Um, come on now, everyone knows that you buy and install a new lock when you move in.  Who is stupid enough to move into an apartment with the old tenant's lock still on the door?  Common sense, people!  A lock is easy to change yourself - all you need is a screwdriver!

  • ThreeAndNine

    Yep, I've always changed mine, informed the landlord and let them make a copy if they want one.

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