What to do if you're going home for Easter
Published on 20 March 13
You may be looking forward to going home for a while, but to avoid any nasty surprises on your return, take a look at our checklist to keep your property safe
Burglary across the whole of South Manchester is down, but empty homes make prime targets. These simple steps can help keep your stuff yours.
Going home checklist
- If you’re in private rented accommodation try to make sure you take all portable expensive electronic equipment with you. Taking the TV may not be an option, so make sure you put it somewhere out of sight. If a thief can’t easily see property worth stealing via a casual glance through a window it may put them off breaking in.
- Try to make your accommodation look occupied, rather than a house in darkness for weeks. Invest in a cheap plug in timer(s) that you could use with a lamp. This can be set to come on at different times during hours of darkness and may prove to be a deterrent to the thief (currently £3.25 with a well known online retailer).
- Agree with your housemates that the last person to leave your accommodation does a visual and physical check to make sure all windows and doors have been locked.
- If you’re transporting belongings from your accommodation to a car etc, make sure you lock your door between journeys, unless you can see the entrance to your house/flat.
- When travelling back home, try to carry laptops in a bag that doesn’t shout "computer in here".
General advice about keeping you and your property safe
The impression that all crimes occur during the hours of darkness is not always correct, there have been a number of crimes on campus during the day, usually involving mobile phones.
Many of the new generation smart phones/devices will have a tracking app available to download. Take advantage of this technology if it’s applicable. The Police have had a number of successes using the tracking facility. Although you need to make sure you password protect the tracking app so that the thief can’t easily disable it.
How to report crime
You can report any suspicious behaviour on campus to security on 0161 306 9966. Don’t worry about wasting security officers time, they would rather come out to a false alarm than not get a call in the first place.
If you are a victim of crime please report it to security on 0161 306 9966 or the Police on 101. If it’s an emergency and the crime has just happened, it’s 999.
For more information regarding safety around campus, visit the Crime Reduction at the University of Manchester Facebook page.