Do apartment complexes need security guards in Texas?

What the law does and does not say

Texas has no statute that obliges an apartment owner to provide guards. Property law does expect an owner to take reasonable care for residents’ safety in light of what the owner knows, and a community with a history of incidents that does nothing about them carries a risk in any later claim. Lenders, insurers and management companies add their own expectations, and some leases describe the security the community provides. Whether to hire guards is a business decision, made with those pressures in mind.

Why managers make that decision

Because the property is open twelve hours a day with nobody in charge of it. Residents call the office on Monday about Saturday night, and the office can only apologize. A courtesy patrol officer on the property in the evening and overnight answers the calls when they happen, clears the pool at closing, checks the gates and the breezeways, logs the cars that do not belong, and writes a report the manager reads in the morning. Renewals go up when residents feel someone is there; incidents go down when the people who cause them learn the property is watched.

When it is worth it, and when it is not

A small, quiet community with a gated lot and no history may not need a post, and a reasonable company will say so on the walk-through. A large garden community, a property with a pool that draws non-residents, a community on a busy corridor, one with a history of vehicle break-ins or one whose reviews mention safety needs a post, usually evening and overnight seven nights a week. Between those, the daily report from a trial period is the honest answer: it shows what the officer found and whether the hours fit.

What Price Protection provides

Courtesy patrol with licensed officers on scheduled shifts, post orders written with the manager, a courtesy line residents can call, and a report every morning, at communities across Greater Houston. The courtesy patrol page describes the post, and the multifamily hub lists the property types with their own pages.