Tuesday, April 7, 2009
One night last semester, Laura Mueller woke up and saw a man banging on her third floor window, demanding to be let in.
Mueller, Plano, Texas, senior and seven other girls in her house called 911.
Photo illustration by Weston White
Mueller said the police arrived before the man, like others before him, found his own way inside.
“It was eight girls all in a room screaming trying to get him away,” Mueller said. “He kept trying to open the window and right when the cops came he went downstairs.”
Despite the city’s overall decrease in crime, the Lawrence Police Department reported increased incidents of trespassing, burglary and criminal damage to property in 2008 than in 2007. Mueller said that she took basic safety precautions, like keeping her doors locked, but that because she lived in an older home, it was harder to secure her property.
“Our door doesn’t latch well so it goes open because it won’t hold, our back door falls off, and our windows don’t work,” Mueller said. “The landlords fix it in the cheapest and fastest way they can. It lasts for a little while then it breaks again.”
Robert Baker, education director of Housing and Credit Counseling Services, said he frequently received complaints about a property’s faulty safety features, such as broken locks or entrance keypads. Baker said he understood why students would want to take such matters into their own hands. But he said renters needed their landlord’s permission before fixing a safety problem themselves, because it could alter the property value or their taxes.
Aaron Caruthers, Lawrence senior, said he couldn’t do much to prevent people from trespassing, stealing and destroying his property. Since moving into his house on 13th and Ohio streets in August, Caruthers said cell phones, kegs and other items had been stolen from his home, although he did stop a group of men from taking his couch.
Caruthers said he had also dealt with people damaging his property, like the time his TV satellite was kicked over, or when someone smashed the chairs on his porch.
“It’s drunk people trying to destroy your stuff,” Caruthers said. “Nothing seems to go right for very long.”
Mueller also said people coming home from the bars caused problems around her house on 13th and Ohio streets. She said people had broken into her house at least twice. Although the intruders left before stealing property or harming anyone, Mueller said the property owners hadn’t done much to secure the home from future break-ins.
“It’s really easy to break in,” Mueller said. “We’re worried about it, but there’s not really much we can do.”
Visit The Home Safety Council to create a custom safety checklist for where you live.
— — Edited by Grant Treaster
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