Your buzzer still calls the old tenant

You usually find out one of two ways. A friend says a stranger answered and told them you do not live here, or deliveries keep not arriving and you cannot work out why.

Nothing about a move-out updates the lobby panel by itself, and nobody in the building has a reason to notice until someone complains.

Why it happens

Many lobby panels store one phone number for each unit, typed into the panel’s directory. Mircom’s TX3, for example, keeps each resident entry as a dial code, a name and a phone number. When a tenant leaves, somebody has to change that entry. A lease ending does not do it. How the directory works.

In a busy building, updating an entry panel can wait until somebody asks. So ask.

Need to ask for the change in writing? Get a ready-to-send message for your building manager, landlord or front desk. It is free, and nothing you type leaves your browser.

Say the security part out loud

This is the part worth leading with. A buzzer pointing at a former tenant means a person with no connection to the building can grant entry to anyone who presses your unit number.

They probably will not. They will probably say wrong number and hang up. But they can, and it is not your call to make on the building's behalf. Building access is a safety matter for every resident, which gives your request more weight than a delivery inconvenience.

What to send

Keep it short, name the unit, name the security angle, and ask for confirmation.

• Your unit number, and the name currently showing in the lobby directory if you know it.
• The phone number you want the panel to dial.
• One sentence: the buzzer currently rings a former tenant, who is able to release the lobby door for any visitor.
• A request that they confirm by email once it is changed.

The general version of this request, with more detail on what to expect.

Then test it yourself

1. Go to the lobby panel Take your phone. Do this once you have the email saying it is done, not before.
2. Press your own unit number Your phone should ring within a few seconds.
3. Check the name on the display The display name and the dialled number are separate fields. A building can fix one and not the other, and a stale name in the directory is its own small problem.
4. Answer, and open the door once Confirms the whole chain, not just the ringing part. Only press the door digit for someone you know is there, such as a friend you brought down with you.

While you are in there

You are about to spend a week getting the building to make one change to one field. It is worth deciding what you actually want in that field before they make it.

If more than one person lives in the apartment, giving them one personal mobile number recreates the same problem in a milder form: one person is now the only one who can let anyone in, and you have used up your one easy request. A number with more than one roommate on it avoids going back to them again. BuzzMeBro does that for $9.99 a month, ringing up to 4 phones at once. The other options are here too.