Last fall in London, when a man entered women’s bedrooms and watched them sleep, the Western off-campus community went on alert.
The so-called ‘Creeping Tom’ targeted homes near the university and Fanshawe College and fled each scene when the women woke up.
Though a suspect was charged months later, it’s this type of situation Glenn Matthews, housing mediation officer for the two schools, hopes students can avoid in the future.
Despite receiving a slight increase in concerns from students about the bedroom creeper, people appeared to become only a little more diligent about safety, he says.
Often, he adds, when he visits students off campus to address housing concerns, he finds their front doors unlocked.
“I can’t tell you how many times (that’s happened). It’s, in some ways, scary,” he says. “(We usually) leave a little note, ‘By the way, you left your door open. You could have been minus your TV, laptop.'”
Off-campus safety is an important element to Matthews’ work with Western’s Housing Mediation Service.
“It’s certainly part of our material,” he says, adding students should consider how far a prospective home is from bus stops, if it’s well lit and if there are many hiding spots nearby.
Matthews gets more than 2,000 calls each year from students to help them deal with a variety of housing issues besides safety, including exercising their rights when dealing with unscrupulous landlords, settling disputes with roommates and resolving problems with neighbours – such as noise, property upkeep and garbage.
Services are available until midnight weekdays and on weekends during the academic year. Housing Mediation Service’s Listing Service Self-help Office is also open from 8:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m., 365 days a year.
The website offers need-to-know information about living off campus – everything from bylaws and keg parties, to sample agreements and a section specifically about renting in London. Visit www.has.uwo.ca/housing/mediation/renting_tools.htm#RentingLondon.
Roommate issues and maintenance are the two largest concerns from students, so it’s important to plan and research well before moving off campus, he says.
“Students assume they can live with a friend or someone they know in residence,” he says. “(But) what happens when someone’s short of money? What happens when the kitchen’s not as clean as they’d like it? What happens when someone acquired a girlfriend, a boyfriend who’s over all the time?”
These are all common issues many students face, and there are a number of things they can do to prepare for them and others. According to Matthews, the top three are:
*Make a budget for rent, utilities, Internet and other costs.
*Get everything the landlord promises in writing, such as changing the locks. “We’ve seen people with keys from previous tenants rip off places,” he says.
*Talk to current tenants about whether the landlord does a good job. “They are the best indicator.”
Housing Mediation Service works with students and landlords. It holds landlord information nights and even did 50 presentations to about 1,200 people in January, Matthews says.
Many of these annual presentations are made to students living in residence, meant to give them the information they need to prepare them for a possible move off campus. For example, since smoke detectors are mandatory on every level of a home and outside bedrooms, the London Fire Department gives away more than 1,000 smoke detectors in October to students who live off campus.
Educational newsletters are also sent out six times a year to more than 30,000 students via e-mail, as well as mailed to 2,000 homes around the campus.
Maintaining good relationships with neighbours is also important.
A number of groups participate every year in spring clean-up contests or the Adopt-A-Street program, a project to keep streets litter-free, which recently finished its third year. Teams get to choose which part of the city to clean up.
“It’s a good way to give back to your community,” Matthews says, adding he hopes more groups will join the project for the long-term. For example, a fraternity near Waterloo and Piccadilly streets currently cleans up that area each year.
Housing Mediation Services also helps off-campus students furnish their homes. Through an annual furniture exchange called Take It Or Leave It, students or London residents donate furniture and household items that they no longer want and students can use them.
An electronic garage sale, in the style of eBay or Kijiji, is also offered on the service’s website. It gets about 3,000 advertisements per year, Matthews says.
For more information on Housing Mediation Service, contact 519-661-3787, e-mail housing.mediation.service@uwo.ca, visit Elgin Hall (Room 102), or go to has.uwo.ca/housing/mediation.