Student house break-ins

pandas66

I have friends with 'kids' at Uni and they bring EVERYTHING home!

One rents a van for the duration and parks that in the garage, locked and never moves it till home time. The other deposits it with Gran as she has space.

KittyKate

A few years ago I went to Uni in Bradford (Whyyy??!!!). The student houses were manky, unsafe and everyone I knew (thankfully apart from me, but I got mugged instead) got burgled.

I would always say NEVER keep your passport in your room at uni unless you specifically need it. Mail it special delivery back home. Same goes for cheque books etc, anything which you need but don't use which can be exploited if taken.

ALWAYS get insured - Endsleigh or similar do deals from about £8 a month-ish.

Never walk out of your home jangling your keys as it draws attention to opportunist thieves you are leaving. Don't fiddle with your mobile or mp3 player as you'll look..well...muggable!

Girl OR boy, always carry a personal alarm, you can get them in poundland or better still ask in your union they generally have a stash.

Don't walk down 'dodgy' roads at night, on your own, or at all, if you can help it. My mate got mugged with a knuckleduster on a well known rough street. The detour was only 5 minutes longer.

ALWAYS lock your bedroom door with a key - in fact, avoid renting places without locks on each bedroom door. My lovely charming female housemate stole upwards of £2k from me (and spat in my belongings) as she was jealous of me and I had no idea. Don't be too free with trust, people will do anything when they are desperate.

Sadly I've learnt from experience. If I knew then what I new now.. I hope at least one person remembers this and keeps safe because you feel invincible until you have a screwdriver at your ear.

[Deleted User]

Try a razor blade held to the side of the neck on Smithdown Road in Liverpool (ahh...great times)

I'm still a bit upset i 'did the right thing' and gave the junkie 20 quid, and didn't smack him in the face, but i'm glad i don't have the scar to prove i'm a bad punch.

Try this advice: only take cash on nights out - you can't be forced to a cash machine by a mugger that way. Plus, you'll probably spend less - MSE self defence!

tr3mor

I'm so glad I live in a 3rd floor flat, there'd be no point a burglar trying to get up here, there's too many other soft targets around!

Money_saving_Martyn

ringo_24601 wrote:

Try this advice: only take cash on nights out - you can't be forced to a cash machine by a mugger that way. Plus, you'll probably spend less - MSE self defence!

That's a really good point! I always worry when I see girls with handbags overflowing with mp3 players etc etc. I think, "Do they know it's THAT obvious?!"

I generally don't take anything other than my sandwiches and clock card with me to work now - someone got mugged at the end of my road so I'm taking no chances.

As for safety in houses, i'd recommend a few things.

Firstly, when choosing a house - have a proper look round. Are the locks good quality, are the windows double glazed (or atleast in the frame!) If a house you're in become less safe, write to (or speak to) your landlord.

Always have locks on individual rooms.

Talk to your housemates about it. I was in a houseshare with people who went out and left windows open etc etc........ I even came home once to find the door had been unlocked and ajar all night! I soon escaped from that house!

Try to keep valuable out of sight - even inside your room. Theives generally don't want to hang around so they're unlikely to go through piles of clothes just incase there's a mp3 player in there. Have a few lockable safe/box things which you can hide too.

ALWAYS get insurance. I use http://www.sisdirect.co.uk/ they're SO much cheaper then Endsleigh. No need to over estimate, but always buy enough cover to cover your expensive items.

Be safe!

MsFit

I had my house broken into a while back,
nothing was done about it

Impet_Limpet

i previously stayed with ny ex b/f who lived on lower breck rd in l'pool for about 3 months, i had 1 car stolen, 1 attempted car jacking (a well placed swing of a steering lock stoppped that) my b/f got mugged outside the train station in daylight, he just lost some change and they exchanged broken noses. These things can happen in any town/city so it is important to take care of your personal safety, and take simple steps to make yourself less of a target.

floyd

ringo_24601 wrote:

Try a razor blade held to the side of the neck on Smithdown Road in Liverpool (ahh...great times)

I have been in Liverpool for 11 years now and have NEVER had anything bad happen to me and I know exactly why it is. I lived in one of the roughest parts of Anfield and did everything possible to not look like a student, all my friends were from the area and I didn't really knock round with anyone from uni because most of them were !!!!!!. Smithdown is not really a bad area, it just has a massively inflated crime rate because it is chock full of students who are seen as easy targets. Basically, the people who commit these crimes don't s**t on their own doorstep, so if you live in Anfield, Kenny, Toxteth or Norris Green people don't tend bother you but there's always exceptions. Student housing is usually in the middle-range areas like Smithdown, Mossley Hill, Prescot Road and Old Swan where students tend to stick out like a sore thumb.
A guy I work with who was also a student here has always lived along Smithdown and he has been mugged, chased, broken into and had his car scratched. I guess its one of those areas that has a bad rep for things like that going on, shame really if thats the impression that people get of this city when they stay here.

dag_2

What about checking the deprivation figures on the neighbourhood statistics web site before deciding which student digs you move into?

It's fair to say that your chance of being mugged or burgled is significantly reduced if you stick to the areas whose stats look good.

Hey - you might want to check the statistics before deciding which university town you wanted to study in too. Mind you, if everyone did that, then no-one would ever study in Liverpool or Nottingham.

You might ask - why is it that only students seem to complain about burglary and mugging? Don't the long-term residents in these towns suffer the same problems? Well - yes they do. But there's two reasons why we don't hear the long-term residents complain.

Firstly - to some extent, it's their day to day reality. The crime waves which shock those from more middle-class backgrounds is not so shocking to those who have lived with it all their lives.

Secondly - the fact that educational achievement tends to correlate with socio-economic status means that the people who actually get in to full-time university study tend to be from more middle-class backgrounds than your average council tenant. As a result, people from council estates know that students have parents who have money, and so students do get targeted specifically while they're in the university town, especially if they visibly stand out. However, despite this, students tend not to get mugged or burgled in their parental home towns as much as the council tenants in the university towns do.

Thirdly (okay I can't count) - let's be honest. We consider the people who mug and burgle us to be "chavs". When they complain that they're being mugged and burgled as well, we tend to ignore it! We only care when other students complain!

So my advice is, check the neighbourhood deprivation stats for your student digs, preferably before you move in. Compare it to the stats of your parental home. And be very wary of digs whose neighbourhood stats are much much worse than your parental home.

I appreciate the reality that the stats for any available student digs are almost always going to be worse than your parental home, especially if you happen to be studying in Liverpool, Nottingham or Manchester.

So perhaps you just have to face up to it. "Classless Britain" is a myth - and when I say "class", I don't mean university lectures or tutorials! We live in a divided society - and when you go from your parental home to the student digs, you sail very close to that division - which is why you become a target for mugging and burglary.

On the other hand, you could just stay with or near your parents, and study with the Open University instead. You'll probably be able to transfer credit - and as long as you haven't already graduated, the fact that you've already been in higher education will not disqualify you from the full six years of financial assistance with the Open University.

Let's face it - what's the point in moving to a dodgy area, only to get inferior quality teaching, and a degree which is not as well respected by employers?