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The Break In!
16 Plays2 months ago
🎧 Welcome to Thoughts For Rent — the podcast where real estate gets real (and local)!
Hosted by Jenni McKenna, a Las Vegas born and raised seasoned broker, and Owner of McKenna Property Management, this show is your inside look at what’s really happening in the Vegas property management and real estate world. With over 20 years of experience herself - Jenni brings not just knowledge, but heart to the conversation.
Whether we’re talking market trends, property tips, community happenings, or just the everyday quirks of Vegas living, this podcast is all about keeping you in the know.
💬 Real talk. Local stories. Professional insight – provided from a company who has their boots on the ground and hearts in the community.
In this episode, we’re sharing a crazy experience that we just went through where someone tried to break into our office!
McKenna Property Management, proudly managing Las Vegas homes since 2005 (and loving every minute of it).
Hit subscribe and comment down below to join the conversation! 💛
✨ Stay connected with us!
Instagram: @mckennapropertymanagement
Facebook: McKenna Property Management
TikTok: @TheMcKennaTeam
Website: McKennaPropertyManagement.com
Phone: 702-434-HOME (4663)
Owner/Broker: Jenni McKenna B.29819
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Transcript
Intro
Introduction to 'Thoughts for Rent'
00:00:20
Irelynn Zurflueh
Hi everyone, welcome back to another episode of Thoughts for Rent, Realtors Keeping It Real. I am Ireland and this is Jenny McKenna keeping it real baby. See my little real dance?
00:00:34
Irelynn Zurflueh
Here we go. And she's come back with a little bit of a tan. So she was on vacation. So she's back now. Where were you at? I went to Jamaica. How was it?
00:00:45
Irelynn Zurflueh
It was so relaxing. it was so nice. Max, who just did an episode a little earlier, he looks so dark and tan. And he made a comment about it. He's like, yeah, we just got back from Jamaica.
00:00:56
Irelynn Zurflueh
I look like I've been to Jamaica, but this one doesn't. And You know what I said? Because I use sunscreen, which you should use. You should burn your face like that. We have some tanning competitions in the office, though. We have some pretty good tanners in the office. And so the big thing is always who can get as tan as Max in the summer. So it's a pretty consistent challenge that people try to do. And he's got a pretty darn good head start since we were just in Jamaica for 10 days.
00:01:24
Irelynn Zurflueh
So they were in Jamaica also during Easter. And while you were in Jamaica, any fun, exciting news that you received on vacation?
Vacation Interrupted: A Robbery Call
00:01:35
Irelynn Zurflueh
so ah we I've done a lot of vacations, obviously, being owner-broker of McKenna Property Management. And one of the things is I have the most amazing team. And they allow these vacations to happen without having to call me, email me, text me.
00:01:50
Irelynn Zurflueh
So really, i get to go down there wherever I'm at. And not worry about work. So when I got the call on Monday, Monday, i was like, what the heck?
00:02:04
Irelynn Zurflueh
And the call was this. Hey, Jenny, I hate to call you while you're on vacation, especially because it was the last day of vacation, but we've been robbed. And my heart just went right into my stomach. Honestly, I almost felt like I was going to throw up because I was like, are you kidding me?
00:02:23
Irelynn Zurflueh
We knew on Sunday. And we've been at this location 10, 12, 13 think this is year 11. Year 11. Year 11.
00:02:34
Irelynn Zurflueh
Yeah, because we're in 2025. So yeah, it's year 11. And we've never I mean, we've had little weird things that have happened. The funnest one, or the funniest, I shouldn't say it's great, but it's funny.
Recounting the Pixie Stick Incident
00:02:45
Irelynn Zurflueh
We used to have a slot in the front door where you could just drop the rent checks off into the front door. And this was years and years ago. And we came in one Monday morning, and there was those pixie sticks, you know, those really big pixie sticks, somebody had like gummed it together, they had chewed gum,
00:03:02
Irelynn Zurflueh
put gum between three pixie sticks, stuck it into that thing and retrieved some cashier's checks and some rent checks. That one was, but they got, they got them and they actually, yeah Walmart actually cashed them, which is beyond me.
00:03:17
Irelynn Zurflueh
So there's always been little weird things, but nothing like a full break in. So when I got the call on Monday, it was awful. Yeah. So I came into the office on Monday and you can, there's two entrances and I always take the side entrance because it's the closest one to my office.
00:03:35
Irelynn Zurflueh
And as I'm walking through the side entrance, there's all this like weird gunk on all of the doors, almost as if someone took like a mixture of flour and water and then just like splashed it on the doors.
00:03:49
Irelynn Zurflueh
So at first I was like, why is all this nasty gunk here? It was on the main door and it was on the side door. i end up coming into the side door and then i end up going into my office and like three of my drawers are open.
A Pen Prank or Something More?
00:04:04
Irelynn Zurflueh
and so which is I'll come in after a weekend because we have cleaners and things will be moved around. And so I kind of was like, not shocked, but I also was like, they're usually not this, not disrespectful, but like, um they're not this obvious. Like, it's like papers that have been shuffled around, not full cabinets open.
00:04:23
Irelynn Zurflueh
was like, this is strange. And then when I was, I was going to close all the cabinets, I noticed that one of my, or my only Montblanc pen was missing because I kept it in the drawer in the like Montblanc container.
00:04:36
Irelynn Zurflueh
So then I immediately thought, oh, someone in the office is like pulling a prank and they like stole my pen and it's like an Easter Sunday prank. So I'm like getting ready to go to our like morning huddle and I'm going to like basically accuse the whole office of stealing my pen and make whoever took it give it back.
00:04:55
Irelynn Zurflueh
And as I'm on my way to the morning huddle, one of my coworkers like, hey, just so you know, like there was a break in in your office, like some drawers are open and stuff. That's why.
00:05:07
Irelynn Zurflueh
It looks like that we wanted to leave everything the way it was. So then I was like, okay, I guess I shouldn't yell at anyone that they stole my pen. Doesn't it feel weird that after you found out somebody was rummaging through all your stuff and stole your Mont Blanc, don't you feel like they invaded like your space? Isn't that weird? Absolutely. And I definitely like...
00:05:28
Irelynn Zurflueh
i would I mean, they are not including the software and not including the things that the company provides. that That was the most like expensive thing in my office. But I have some, I don't know, my diploma's in my office. And like I have a couple like figurines in my office. So I kind of was a little nervous that they had taken more. i'd guess they didn't want my diploma. They just wanted my pen So I don't have to worry about that. The funny thing is they took the Mont Blanc and then this beautiful laptop was sitting right behind it and they didn't even touch this laptop. Yeah. So I don't know. It's, it definitely, we have, we have learned more information since
Building Break-In: What Was Lost?
00:06:05
Irelynn Zurflueh
then. We have learned that we weren't the only one.
00:06:08
Irelynn Zurflueh
They got hit in the building. ah The building consists of three other ah companies on the downstairs. And then the upstairs is being completely rehabbed. It's a fertility clinic that's getting rehabbed.
00:06:21
Irelynn Zurflueh
So there's tons of construction work that's going on on there all the time. They're about 90 days from being finished. So we found out that the um mortgage company across the hall got ransacked, like ransacked. They got all of the monitors.
00:06:37
Irelynn Zurflueh
um they They dug in all of the drawers. They took personal information. It's really pretty bad. And then we talked to the medical facility that's behind us, and they also ah got a little ransacked, but more about prescription drugs, not like...
00:06:54
Irelynn Zurflueh
you know, oxycodone or anything like that, but just some kind of prescription drugs and also some computer stuff. So the fact that we got, and I feel bad that Ireland lost her Mont Blanc, but the fact that they, yeah, true, that they stole that, they ransacked a couple of our drawers.
00:07:14
Irelynn Zurflueh
And then the biggest thing is they took keys for our vacant homes.
Key Security Breach
00:07:20
Irelynn Zurflueh
Yeah. And that's that was the bummer. And we didn't even realize that until we were preparing a key bag for a resident to come in.
00:07:28
Irelynn Zurflueh
yeah Yeah. So I think it worked out again. Good, good karma and just all around. it was a bad situation, but it was the best of a bad situation because we found out same day. all the keys were a vacant unit. So we were able to get them all rekeyed.
00:07:44
Irelynn Zurflueh
um Nobody had to necessarily be involved in that process because nobody was living in the homes. But um yeah, we theorized because what the way it happened is the power had gotten shut off. And so that's kind of how access was gained was because electricity was down.
00:08:01
Irelynn Zurflueh
So when you bring up the laptop, it sits, my laptop sits on top of a like stainless steel black fridge. So because there was no light in the office,
00:08:12
Irelynn Zurflueh
My theory is that they didn't even see it because it was just blending in and they were like using flashlights and they just like didn't even notice. I think you might be right because your office has absolutely no outside light. yeah It has no window or anything else. It would all be artificial lighting. Yeah.
00:08:28
Irelynn Zurflueh
So I've been playing detective for like the last seven days just coming up with my theory what happened and what's been going on. I think we all have and we've all been kind of talking to everything. But this is the thing that I don't like. We know that we were targeted And it wasn't just random.
00:08:43
Irelynn Zurflueh
And that that's bothers that bothers me a lot.
Exploiting the Power Outage
00:08:47
Irelynn Zurflueh
So we know that obviously this the Sunday that it happened, it was Easter Sunday. And they cut the power because I talked to the detective. So what they did is...
00:08:58
Irelynn Zurflueh
They actually cut the power and then they must have known that all of our alarms, which we just now learned actually only have a battery life of somewhere between four and eight hours.
00:09:09
Irelynn Zurflueh
And then after that, you have no eyes anymore. Your alarm is, is done. The other thing that I didn't realize that criminals would see the things you learn after you get burglarized, you're like now in the mind of a criminal when they cut the power,
00:09:25
Irelynn Zurflueh
Anything that was a timed lock in the community area is opened up now in case of a fire. So we have these doors that get locked at, I think it's like six o'clock PM and they don't open up again until 7 AM.
00:09:41
Irelynn Zurflueh
It's always given me a sense of security that not just the general public can be walking in and out of those doors to gain access to our side door. Yeah. Well, when you cut the power, the magnetic strip no longer keeps the door closed and you're vulnerable. And that's how they were able to get in and do so much to damage without anybody from the street seeing what was going on.
00:10:04
Irelynn Zurflueh
Yeah. But the thing is, Ireland, I'm frustrated. So everyone that's listening to us knows we're in property management. We bust our butt.
00:10:15
Irelynn Zurflueh
We have after hours emergency lines, right? If somebody's got in one of our residents, one of our residential properties, they're Let's use, ah let's say the washer starts overflowing and the resident doesn't know what to do and there's water going everywhere.
00:10:33
Irelynn Zurflueh
Would they be able to get hold of us? As long as, yeah as long as they call the after hours phone and does the proper procedures, then yeah, they would. And what would we do, Ireland, to make sure that the damage of what was going on wasn't going to continue?
00:10:49
Irelynn Zurflueh
We'd try to walk them through turning off the water to just the appliance. And then if they kind of have an issue with that, then it would be turning off the water to the whole unit. And then once we actually stop the leak from happening, then it's a matter of getting ah professional vendor out there to keep doing the work and and figure out the rest.
00:11:08
Irelynn Zurflueh
So it sounds like you would have jumped onto something so that you could avoid more damage, correct? Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's not what happened in our situation.
00:11:20
Irelynn Zurflueh
So we... knew the building didn't have power on Sunday morning, Easter morning, whole entire building doesn't have power. We know that because our alarm notified our team member, our office manager saying there was something going on with the alarm and that that needed to get looked at.
00:11:39
Irelynn Zurflueh
So our office manager being vigilant came down to the building and realized, oh my gosh, there is no power to anyone in this building. but there was power everywhere else.
00:11:52
Irelynn Zurflueh
She called NV Energy. NV Energy said, oh, no, no, your meter still has power. We haven't shut the power to your building. So NV Energy still reading that this is still a building that has power because they cut it the exterior line.
00:12:06
Irelynn Zurflueh
We reached out to our property manager and our property manager didn't call back.
00:12:15
Irelynn Zurflueh
1130, 1230, 130, 230, Alonda continued to leave messages. 330, Alonda finally said, hey, we're very vulnerable.
00:12:26
Irelynn Zurflueh
There is no power on the building. We don't have an alarm on our office. I think you need to send somebody over and you need to send somebody over ASAP. You need to call me back. And it was a very forceful, you better do this because I've been patient.
00:12:41
Irelynn Zurflueh
It needs to happen. Ireland, did they send anyone? I don't know. ah Okay. No. So the property manager finally called back at 3.30 and said, oh, you know what? I think that that's a normal power outage.
00:12:58
Irelynn Zurflueh
And Alanda said, no, I've already talked to NV Energy. It's not a normal power outage. um So then she said, oh yeah, I guess we should send someone over. And Alanda said, okay, well, I'll wait here. I'm here at the building. I'll wait for them to come because once they put the power back on, our alarm would have been on.
00:13:16
Irelynn Zurflueh
The magnetic doors would have locked. Everything would have gone back to security. So she said, no, no, you don't need to wait. They know exactly what they need to do. We hung up. 1030, Alanda came over.
00:13:33
Irelynn Zurflueh
the Building still had no power. The property manager decided not to send anybody over. and Ultimately, we all got robbed. A little frustrating.
00:13:44
Irelynn Zurflueh
Yeah. I mean, how do you feel about that? I don't care. i don't i don't care. it's It's just one of those things. Well, the first thing I said is I don't know all those details.
00:14:00
Irelynn Zurflueh
So I guess I don't have the ins and outs. I don't have the phone receipts. I don't have any of that communication. All I know is that
00:14:09
Irelynn Zurflueh
If I did say I was going to send somebody out, I would send somebody out. I just don't know. and mean, that wasn't my story. Like, I don't know what Alonda went through. i just get frustrated because as a property manager, we work so hard for communication with our residents.
00:14:25
Irelynn Zurflueh
We really stay on top of anything that somebody would have called and said, we have no electricity or there's a leak or anything that could do possible damage.
00:14:36
Irelynn Zurflueh
We jump on it. It's an emergency. And I feel like we were just passed over. It was Easter. This person didn't want to deal with us.
00:14:47
Irelynn Zurflueh
It's a commercial building. So a lot of times there's not a lot of emergencies. We deal with a lot of emergencies because we have individual houses, but I mean, I'm still paying rent. I'm still a resident here. I still would like my office to be secure.
00:15:03
Irelynn Zurflueh
I'm paying for power to be to my office. So I'm a little frustrated. I got to tell you, I think this could have been totally avoided. Granted, I know it was a professional job.
00:15:14
Irelynn Zurflueh
um But I think that if the power had gotten turned on on Sunday, which it was absolutely could have if she had sent somebody out, we could be sitting here today without a podcast talking about our burglary.
00:15:27
Irelynn Zurflueh
Yeah. So little frustrating. Yeah.
00:15:32
Irelynn Zurflueh
I can't believe you're not frustrated. I mean, I'm not. It's it everything. i guess I can't speak about the other companies because they got hit more. um But at least from what I know, they never gave you like an emergency line or they don't have a protocol for.
00:15:50
Irelynn Zurflueh
i just feel like commercial is so different. And I'm not saying that commercial places shouldn't have an emergency line. They should. they should. And everyone should have that, you know, necessity.
00:16:01
Irelynn Zurflueh
But if we signed a lease and didn't receive the emergency information or how to like, that's what I'm saying is that when we. onboard or sign a lease with someone. We tell them exactly how to reach us if there's an emergency.
00:16:15
Irelynn Zurflueh
We, as people, didn't ask those questions when we moved in because we made the assumption everything was going to be okay because it's just a commercial building. But we did find the emergency number and we did call the property manager. It took us a little while. It took us from about 9 a.m. to about 1130 a.m.
00:16:30
Irelynn Zurflueh
But we did ultimately get that that number And then the individual just decided that it wasn't important enough to do anything about.
Protocol Changes for Future Safety
00:16:40
Irelynn Zurflueh
But with everything life throws you, there's always a lesson to be learned.
00:16:46
Irelynn Zurflueh
And I do think we learned some good lessons from this. Would you agree? Yeah. So as Ireland has already explained, her Montblanc stolen, ruffled through a couple of our drawers, took our vacant um ah keys for our vacant properties for our resident our residential properties.
00:17:06
Irelynn Zurflueh
But one thing that I never realized until this happened, we were always preparing key bags for residents so that it would be super convenient when they come in. All the keys would be tagged with the address of the property, front door, back door, garage door, whatever it is, mailbox key, all very clearly put on the key tag.
00:17:30
Irelynn Zurflueh
We're not doing that anymore, are we Ireland? No. No. Because we realize if we get burglarized and they take those darn keys, they have the address of those properties.
00:17:43
Irelynn Zurflueh
So luckily we got that fixed immediately and all of the the vacant properties have ah got rekeyed. But I just want to make sure that if this ever happens again,
00:17:54
Irelynn Zurflueh
we don't give carte blanche access to our vacant properties. That is kind of stupid, but I never even realized that that could have happened. Yeah. lesson learned, and we're going to make sure that we change our protocol and our procedure on that.
00:18:09
Irelynn Zurflueh
And now all of our properties will have codes that will be on a doc spreadsheet that only team members will have access to.
Implementing New Security Measures
00:18:19
Irelynn Zurflueh
So if they come in, swipe the keys, they're not going to know what it's for.
00:18:22
Irelynn Zurflueh
They're just going to have a fancy key in their hand. Sounds like a plan. Sounds like a good idea. Sounds like you learn things from things that life throws you.
00:18:33
Irelynn Zurflueh
Yeah. Life teaches you the most lessons. That's right. So I'm grateful that this lesson wasn't catastrophic. It is disturbing. It's frustrating that, you know, ah how it transpired.
00:18:46
Irelynn Zurflueh
But the overall answer is we learned a great lesson from it. It's going to make us better in our company. We actually have done a little extra for security. So we've added those protocols in place.
00:19:00
Irelynn Zurflueh
So yeah, I think that overall it was actually something that was a benefit and i look at it more as a blessing now. I think that's fair. It's probably me maybe also so why I'm not as frustrated as you are. You just live and let God.
00:19:15
Irelynn Zurflueh
That's because she's much more mellow than me.
Episode Reflection and Conclusion
00:19:18
Irelynn Zurflueh
I'm a little high strung most of the time. Ireland is just very, well, we'll just flow with it. She's like one of those, we like, what is the 1970s? The hippies just love life.
00:19:30
Irelynn Zurflueh
All is great. That's Ireland for you. I'm a little bit different. He's in the peace and love. Oh, that's right. She's peace and love. All right. So that's what has been exciting for us. Lessons learned in life from our burglary.
00:19:42
Irelynn Zurflueh
um Unfortunately, happened over Easter, which was kind of a bummer. But other than that, we're hanging good and doing well. Yeah. So we'll see you guys next week.
00:19:53
Irelynn Zurflueh
Bye.