Lighting candles in an old age home

I live in an old age home, and they don’t under any circumstances let us light Chanukkah candles inside the building. Those who want to light candles, light them in the entrance to the building. They built special shelves for this, and there is space for tens of chanukiyos. But you can’t see at all, which chanukiah is whose. I remember that this is problematic. What should I do?

There is no requirement that it be known, which chanukiyah is whose. The only problem occurs when there is a second-story apartment, and the entrance to that apartment is through the apartment on the first story. In this case, the entrance to the first-story apartment is not associated with the second-story apartment. But if there is a lobby, a common hallway and a stairway that belong jointly to all the residents of the building, even though every resident has his own room, the fact that it’s not clear which chanukiah belongs to whom, and who lit and who didn’t, is not a problem at all.  

Tractate Shabbat, folio 21b; Beit Yosef and Shulchan Oruch, chapter 671, §5; Azamrah LiShmecha Newsletter, # 117