Edd Holman was back at City Council Monday night. Same issue. Same buildings. Same codes still on the walls.
Three months ago, Holman, a longtime resident and a West Hollywood Neighborhood Watch Block Co-Captain stood went to council and laid out what he’d found — garage gate access codes written in Sharpie and pen on building exteriors across West Hollywood, usable by anyone with a standard dip switch clicker. Athens Services, the City’s waste hauler, promised at that meeting to help get the codes removed. Wednesday night Holman told the council they haven’t.
“Today, just before this meeting, I found several more gate codes on other streets east of Fairfax,” he said. “One I could see from across the street.”
Over the weekend, Holman used the City’s app to report a code on a block near his home. He got a message saying the ticket was completed. He walked over before Monday’s meeting and the code was still there.
The very first building where he documented the codes — the one that started all of this — has had two cars stolen from its gated garage. No signs of forced entry either time.
“It doesn’t take a detective to figure out how they got in,” Holman told the council.
It’s been a long road to get here. Holman first went public in a Dear WeHo letter on WEHOonline after filming what Holman believed at the time to be an Athens Services driver using a code written on the outside of a building. He went looking for more and found them everywhere — gate frames, key boxes, utility pipes, welcome signs, handrails, 15 on a single street alone. He called the City’s public safety office, called Public Works Director Helen Collins, and called Athens directly.
Athens’ first response was that maybe a delivery service had written the codes. Holman pushed back — delivery drivers come through the front door, not the garage.
Athens Vice President of Government Affairs Jennifer Masterson appeared before the council in February and told members the company doesn’t train drivers to write codes on building exteriors and that doing so would violate company policy on two counts — defacing private property and mishandling confidential information. All route data lives on company tablets through SoftPack software, she said, with a live dispatch team available to pull codes when needed.
The City issued a public safety alert on Instagram in March after WEHOonline’s reporting brought the issue to wider attention. Holman told the council that isn’t enough. A lot of residents, including himself, aren’t on social media. He asked the council to send a physical mailer to residents carrying the same message.
“I hear from time to time council members say that safety in our city is a high priority,” he said. “Tonight I am asking the council to put our money where their mouth is.”
Whatever a mailer costs, he said, it’s a small price to pay to keep residents safe.
The codes Holman found Monday appeared fresh. At least one had been scratched directly into paint.
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…and would someone like to come up with another way for Athens to get into the buildings? Other than having someone from the building stand there and let them in? Oh, and thanks for telling everyone and their brother how to decode the hieroglyphics to do it themselves. Maybe you could provide a link to the correct remote as well? # of dip switches and frequency?
Athens has the remote for our garage gate and I’ve seen them use it. When we changed the code Athens contacted us to let us know they could not get in. We gave them the new remote.
We did see our code to our building entrance gate written on the callbox. We don’t think it had been there long but it does make us aware of this practice.
How long did it take for them to contact you? How many pickups missed? Our building cannot sit waiting for Athens to call to get a new code. Someone has to give it to them, and not on the phone. I know. I’ve done it. Plus all the neighbors then have to reprogram. maybe people should get it through their heads that the garage isn’t secure and they need to keep their cars locked and not as storage for valuables. You wouldn’t park it on the street unlocked (although looking at the crime stats people apparently do so while transporting… Read more »
We missed one pick-up. We gave the driver a new remote later that same week.
They are supposed to be reading the codes from an iPad that the company provides and setting the clicker while in the truck, not by reading them and setting them from the building. The codes are NOT supposed to be written on the building, period. Any former employee with nefarious ideas can come back to that building at anytime and no one would bat an eye if they opened the gate with a clicker, anyone passing by would assume they belonged there. That’s unsafe. Remove the codes or get your landlord or HOA to remove them.
This isnt 1988. Athens has already clained they use tablets in their vehicles for dispatch and tracking and that their software displays pin code, instructions, and / or remote code data. They also connect a software defined radio capable of emulating a binary Dip switch system, rolling code controller, etc. The tablet has Bluetooth, so it could connect to a truly modern / secure system. You can even upload configurations to key cards with a tap. Or just use a Flipper Zero to handle the transmitter and RFID card emulation. A Flipper or SDR with a directional antenna could just… Read more »
There’s video in the initial article.
Thanks Edd.