An empty building has no staff to notice a broken window, no tenants to hear movement, and no reason for anyone to be inside. Dog units that search the site, not just visit it.
Why vacant sites are a detection problem, not a presence problem
On a live site, security is mostly about presence: a uniform at the gate, a patrol people can see. On a vacant site there is nobody to deter. Whoever gets in has the place to themselves, and the risk is not the break-in you can see from the road. It is the person already inside: sleeping in a loading bay, stripping cable, or using the yard as a store.
Finding that person is a search job, and a dog is built for it.
On a routine patrol at an unoccupied London warehouse, an initial inspection found no visible sign of forced entry. The dog remained alert and focused on a row of industrial waste bins. A man was located hiding inside one of the bins.
"It is highly unlikely that a lone security officer would have located the trespasser hiding inside the industrial bin."
A handler and dog attend the site on the pattern agreed with you. Visit frequency depends on the site, its risk profile and client requirements, and is set at quote stage rather than from a fixed package.
A search, not a drive-by
A dog works the interior and the yard, including the places a person hides. In the warehouse account, the search continued after the first inspection found nothing, and that is what a dog adds.
Static dog presence
For sites with a known problem or a high-value period — between a tenant leaving and the strip-out crew arriving, for instance — a unit stays on site for the shift.
Key holding and alarm response
If the site is alarmed, Aspire can hold the keys and respond to activations under agreed procedures, so an overnight alarm does not go to your facilities manager.
•How many hours or visits of cover you want, and over what period
•Why: squatting risk, metal theft, fly-tipping in the yard, an insurer condition, a gap between tenants
•Whether the building is alarmed and who holds keys now
•Any hazards for a dog and handler: open floors, contaminated areas, asbestos notices, animals
Good client communication and response time are the two reasons clients give for choosing Aspire over a larger firm, and a vacant-site quote is where that starts: ask for a pattern for your site, not a package.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
There is no single right number. Visit frequency depends on the site, its risk profile and client requirements, and the quote sets the pattern from those. A building in the week after a tenant moves out and a long-term void with no history are different jobs. Tell us the site, the hours or visits you have in mind, and the reason, and the reply sets out what Aspire recommends and why.
Appropriate service and incident reporting is provided in accordance with the assignment and client requirements, as it was at the warehouse in the case study, where the handler notified the control room and completed the required incident report in accordance with company procedures. A written record is what an insurer or a solicitor will ask you for later.
Yes. Aspire provides key holding and alarm response, and on a vacant site it can be combined with patrols. On activation, a unit attends under agreed attendance, assessment, reporting and escalation procedures, from a control room staffed 24 hours a day; call-out to a site is approximately one hour. Holding the keys also means the patrol unit can search inside rather than only walk the perimeter.
The handler issues a clear verbal warning that a security dog handler and dog are present and that the person should show themselves, keeps a safe working distance, escorts the person off the premises, notifies the control room immediately, and completes the incident report. Incident response and escalation follow the agreed instructions for the site.
Home patch is South London and anywhere inside the M25. For the right contract, cover extends to around Luton. An enquiry for a site outside the area can be considered case by case, depending on availability and operational feasibility, and Aspire does not subcontract to cover the gap.
Get cover quoted for your empty site
Send the location, the hours or visit pattern you have in mind, and the reason for cover. A person replies.
