A recent article in The Mirror keeps coming back to bother me.

It was in regard to the police going around to the known addresses of registered sex offenders in the area to remind them to have no contact with children during Halloween. I saw that they paid a visit to an apartment building that houses many families and is within one block of an elementary school.

Why is this allowed? Most people I have mentioned it to assumed like I did that they were not allowed to live in such close proximity to a school full of young children. Is this the best we can do to protect families? I am shocked and appalled.

Having worked in the property management field for several years, I had it drilled into me how important it is to screen tenants. This always should include a background check. Are the owners of Federal Way apartment communities so desperate for renters that they would allow convicted sex offenders as tenants?

Who is watching out for the children?

Shelley Merryfield, Federal Way