Hall residents report trespassing

By Lim Ching Ying, Ry-Anne Lim

Last month, a Hall of Residence 8 resident reported a case of trespass, after waking up to find a stranger sitting on her bed and lifting her blanket. The following week, Hall 8 Senior Hall Fellow Lam Yeng Meng emailed all residents to lock their doors and look out for suspicious characters.
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION: KENJI KWOK

It was 6.50am on a Thursday morning last month when Lim Jia Xin, 20, woke up to find a stranger lifting her blanket.

The man — yet to be identified — then bolted out of her room on the sixth storey of Hall of Residence 8, said the first-year student from the School of Biological Sciences.

“I was in a state of shock,” said Lim. “I’d been sleeping so I could not instantly process what happened or what I could do.”

It took about 10 minutes for the severity of the incident to dawn on her before she called Campus Security, who arrived at 7.15am.

The following week, Hall 8 Senior Hall Fellow Lam Yeng Ming sent out a mass email reminding residents to lock their doors and look out for suspicious characters.

Sending reminders like this is a routine practice across all halls on the university campus, according to the Hall Office.

But Lim is not the only victim with a story to share.

A 21-year-old student from Hall of Residence 1, who declined to be named, had a similar experience. A stranger had entered her room last September while she was asleep.

Since the victims had gone to sleep without locking their doors in both incidents, the Office of Housing and Auxiliary Services (HAS) classified them as cases of trespass.

The victims also did not find anything missing from their rooms.

Being vigilant

Chief HAS Officer Mr Jimmy Lee said the school will take action and investigate the incidents, but students have to be responsible and play their part as well by being vigilant and locking their doors.

Currently, only Hall of Residence 1 and 2 use key locks. The other 16 undergraduate halls are equipped with electronic locks, which require a personal key fob to unlock.

Mr Lee said such locks are more secure than the old key locks as the key fobs cannot be duplicated.

Certain halls also require the same key fob for access to female residents’ floors, or in the cases of Hall of Residence 15, Crescent Hall and Pioneer Hall, the entire blocks themselves.

Aside from reminding students to stay vigilant, Dr Lam said: “We also make sure that Campus Security is aware and they increase the frequency of patrols. This two-pronged approach will form a very nice network of safety measures.”

Students weigh in

While the issue of trespassing or petty theft in halls is neither new nor unaddressed, students interviewed said such cases highlight the need to continue tightening campus security.

“We’re quite susceptible to thefts,” said Ang Kai Lin, 20, a second-year student from Nanyang Business School (NBS) who lives in Hall of Residence 11.

Ang cited how students had even put up their own posters on noticeboards warning residents, following a series of shoe thefts from multiple rooms last year. The posters have since been removed.

Lim said she and her roommate have learnt their lesson. While they initially thought that the hassle of climbing up the stairs would be a deterrent to trespassers, they now make sure their room door is securely latched before they sleep.

“My bed is behind the door. It means you can’t see me when you open it, so I think the man who entered our room must have had some knowledge of our hall layout, which is quite scary,” she said.

Lim added that installing more security cameras in halls would help her feel more secure.

“At least (then) we’ll have evidence, if not, in incidents like this we don’t have any trace of who it might have been,” she said.

Hall 1 Junior Common Room Committee (JCRC) President Teo Liang Wei, 23, agreed that installing security cameras would be more effective in preventing trespassing and theft on campus.

Both the JCRCs from Halls 1 and 2, as well as their hall fellows, have been pushing for the installation of security cameras in their halls for a few years, said Teo, a second-year student from the School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences.

“We hope the security cameras will deter transgressors and make them think twice about committing crime,” he added.

Mr Lee said the installation of security cameras for halls without them is being considered, but there are no concrete plans yet.

Security is sufficient

Still, there are students who feel the school has done enough to prevent such incidents.

Ryan Khong, 22, a second-year student from NBS, said that if an increase in security came at the cost of privacy — such as having more random room checks — it would inconvenience residents.

Having faced a trespasser first-hand, Lim hopes sharing her story with the Nanyang Chronicle will prompt others to be more careful.

“I think the main problem is that people don’t believe in things until they happen,” she said. “But they need to know that it can. Luckily for me, nothing more happened.”

Mr Lee urged all hall residents to remain vigilant and to immediately report any suspicious activity to Campus Security.

Campus security 24-hour hotline: 6790 5200

A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Nanyang Chronicle on March 7, 2016, with the headline ‘Hall residents report trespassing’. Print Edition