Dorm Room Security

When young adults go away to college, they are likely going to spend at least one year in the dormitories on campus. This is a wonderful experience where they will get to find out what it is like to live so close to so many people with so many different personalities. However, there are some inherent security issues with living in a relatively small space with virtual strangers. Here’s how to help your student be safe when you aren’t there to protect them at every turn.

According to home security system experts, the single most effective step college students can take to keep them and their belongings safe in a dorm room is to keep the door closed and locked. The majority of theft crimes that take place on campus are crimes of opportunity. For example, a laptop computer is left on the bed in plain sight of an open door. Anyone who walks by that door might be tempted to simply take three or four steps into the small room, grab the computer, and be gone before anyone knows it’s missing.

One aspect of living in a dorm is that the students want to be social. They will leave their rooms numerous times during an evening to visit other students. They don’t want the hassle of using their key every time they leave their room, so they prop it open. This is extremely unsafe. Young people haven’t always honed their honesty skills at this age and the temptation to take things that don’t belong to them can be overwhelming.

For the most part, colleges and universities do not allow home security system to be installed in dorm rooms. This is because the sheer number of false alarms that would go off would be astronomical. College students would forget to deactivate them when they enter their rooms or they would give their friends a key but forget to tell them how to turn it off. It really isn’t feasible to have a monitored alarm system in your student’s dorm room, but you can take steps to make sure he or she is safe when she is inside.

Again, locking the door is going to keep most people out. Many dorms feature self-locking doors, which means they automatically lock when the door shuts. This is excellent because no one has to remember to lock his or her door for the night or when he or she leaves. However, your student should always make sure the locks are working as soon as he or she moves in and if they aren’t, the maintenance man should be notified immediately to rectify the situation.