Students living in dorms aren’t the only ones concerned about safety after the recent reports of intruders on campus. The issue of security also has been on the minds of many Northwestern students who live or plan to live off-campus.
Students said the intrusions into three South Campus dorms last month have them thinking about security, but most still feel confident about their safety.
Safety Facts:
- Students say they believe apartments are less safe than dorms.
- Recent intrusions aren’t making students reconsider living off campus.
- Burglaries in Evanston have been decreasing: There were 7.9 percent fewer burglaries in 2004 than in 2003, and 44 percent fewer burglaries in 2004 than in 2000.
“The whole – Peeping Tom thing is kind of scary,” Medill sophomore Perris Richter said. “Ever since then, I’ve been locking my door before I sleep.”
Residents of Allison Hall, Chapin Hall and Willard Residential College have reported strangers entering their rooms. Some students have woken up to find one of the strangers inside the room hovering inches from their beds.
Police say dorm residents let the intruders into the residential halls. Nine similar intrusion cases have been reported since October 2005.
Richter plans to move off campus next year but said she has had no concerns about security in an apartment.
“Off-campus, on the face of it would seem a little less secure, but we’re in Evanston, not the South Side of Chicago,” Richter said.
Burglary rates in Evanston are decreasing, the Evanston Police Department 2004 Crime Index showed. There were 44 percent fewer burglaries in 2004 than in 2000.
The 2004 Crime Index, the most recent edition that compiled crimes by year, recorded 651 burglary incidents.
Vickie Eckart, who manages the Sherman Apartments, 1940 Sherman Ave., has never dealt with a burglary but remembers her experience last year with a different kind of crime.
“We had a 40-year-old crackhead who was let out of Cook County (Jail) by accident. He was jimmying open mailboxes,” Eckart said. “Everyone on Sherman Avenue knew about it.”
Eckart set up a hidden camera concealed behind a potted plant. Within two weeks, she had footage of the man with an umbrella and a crowbar. Eckhart has since moved her tenants’ mailboxes to the inside of the apartment building.
Most landlords will do what they can to keep buildings safe, Eckart said. The City of Evanston also helps enforce this.
“The city inspects buildings all the time,” she said.
The recent reports of intruders on campus still worry soon-to-be off-campus residents.
“The dorms have had problems with people creeping in, and (in dorms) there are so many different keys you need to get into any of the floors,” Weinberg junior Lindsay Dean said. “For an apartment, you only have your front door and your suite door.”
But Dean spoke with her landlord and with other residents of her apartment building and became convinced of the building’s safety.
“They’ve all had positive experiences and haven’t run into any problems,” Dean said.
First year Music graduate student Casey Bozell said she didn’t know how effective the home security system would be in her sublet on the corner of Emerson Street and Wesley Avenue, but still said dorm break-ins did not worry her.
“We’ve got a good lock,” she said. “(The house) does have two very big dogs.”
Reach Diana Xin and [email protected].
