Basement apartments and secondary suites: the buzzer question
Most Toronto basement apartments and secondary suites have no lobby panel, because a house does not have a lobby. Visitors either use a separate entrance and knock, or press a doorbell shared with the upstairs unit. That means there is usually no stored number to change, and the useful fixes are a separate entrance bell and clear delivery instructions rather than anything buzzer-related.
Toronto has a very large number of basement apartments and secondary suites, and the buzzer advice written for towers does not apply to most of them. Working out which situation you are in is the whole exercise.
Which of the three you have
| What you have | Is there a number to change | What helps |
|---|---|---|
| A separate side or rear entrance with your own bell | No | Clear signage and delivery instructions |
| One front doorbell shared with upstairs | No | An agreement with the upstairs unit, and labelling |
| A converted house with a real entry panel | Yes | Everything written for apartment buildings applies |
Only the third row is a buzzer question in the usual sense. What a real entry panel is.
If there is no panel
Then nothing dials a phone number and no service that provides a number can change that. Being told otherwise is worth being sceptical about.
What actually improves things is unglamorous: a clearly labelled entrance, a working bell that can be heard from inside, and delivery instructions that name the door rather than the unit.
The shared doorbell case
One bell, two households. Every delivery and every visitor becomes somebody else’s interruption, and yours get answered by whoever is nearest the door.
This is worth agreeing rather than tolerating. Label the bell, agree who answers what, and ask the owner about a second bell for the separate entrance if there is one. What a driver does when nobody answers.
If your house does have a panel
Converted houses in Toronto with three or more units often do have a small telephone entry panel, and then everything else on this site applies directly. It holds one number per unit and dials it.
If more than one person lives in your unit, that one number is worth pointing at something that rings all of you. BuzzMeBro rings up to 4 phones for $11.99 a month for the unit. How to check what your panel stores.
Questions people ask
Can I get a buzzer installed in a basement apartment?
That is a decision for the owner of the house, and it is a real installation rather than a subscription. Most owners will not, which is why the practical answers here are about signage and instructions.
Deliveries keep going to the upstairs unit.
Label the entrance clearly with the unit designation on your lease and put the same wording in delivery instructions. Drivers match what they see at the door to what is on the label.
Would BuzzMeBro work for my basement apartment?
Only if your house has an entry panel that dials a phone number. If visitors knock or press a doorbell, there is no call for a number to receive and it would not help.
How do I know if my building counts as a house or an apartment?
Look for a panel with a directory at the main entrance. If there is one and pressing your unit rings a phone, you have an apartment entry system whatever the building looks like from the street.
Two of us live in the basement unit and there is a panel.
Then it is the same question as any apartment: one number is stored and one of you answers everything. A number that rings both phones removes that, and the owner only has to make one change.