<p>As an airline employee who values security, I think this is a serious subject. There really should be a lock-up area in each dorm room. Every newsmagazine show talks of idenity theft. Passports are a valuable commodity in the wrong hands, you have a right to try to protect your belongings and your extra cash. Who dosn't know of a "nice" family where someone who got involved with drugs or gambeling starts stealing. My kids new jackets and expensive scientific calculators have been taken in the nice suburban school they attend when they turned their backs for a minute.. And I have been guilty of not locking my home now and again.
I did address this issue at the USC welcome admissions in NYC. Maybe if Nymph or Steaky can email housing and report back to those of us who care about their or their childs belongings we can get a definitive answer on this subject.</p>
<p>yea, i agree with ebayispayingforcollege about the importance of safekeeping personal items. think about this guys/gals, it's not just the room mate or yourself locking the door. what if you or your room mate brings some friends over to hang out and you happen to have to leave the room for a few mins. who knows what your new friends will do. So to have a safe or a locker is the best way to keep your personal things PERSONAL and still have different kinds of friends to hang over your place.</p>
<p>Ok, you guys, here it is. </p>
<p>Most likely, you will not have a roommate who steals your stuff (highly, highly unlikely they would steal your purses, phone, etc, a little more likely that they would steal your money, but still). Or you can just not store money in your room. I just carry all the money I need on me, and everything else is in my USC Credit Union account, an easy swipe of my card away. </p>
<p>So, therefore, when ruling our a klepto roomie, you should be fine with just locking your door (the most thefts happen when you leave your door propped open and then leave the room to chat with someone). </p>
<p>If you don't feel safe with just a locked door, then a safe of some kind would work, if you want to shell out the money. Not necessary, but if you don't feel comfortable leaving your stuff around for your roommate to steal or for someone else to somehow take, then go ahead and get a safe, take the precautions. </p>
<p>As far as journals go, I have one, and I usually just put it in my dresser. I figure my roommate would be more tempted to read my journal if it was just sitting out, but I know for sure she wouldn't go snooping for my things to find it. Or just don't even let your roommate know you have one, then they won't go looking for it.</p>
<p>Basically, I haven't heard any horror stories about roommates stealing from each other, and USC's campus is pretty safe. If you don't feel comfortable, then buy a safe.</p>
<p>This is a bit off-topic with the original post, but I wanted to talk about ebay's point.</p>
<p>"Who dosn't know of a "nice" family where someone who got involved with drugs or gambeling starts stealing. My kids new jackets and expensive scientific calculators have been taken in the nice suburban school they attend when they turned their backs for a minute."</p>
<p>I'm currently a high school senior in a private high school whose annual tuition is reaching $15,000 (actually pretty well priced compared to other private schools in the area).</p>
<p>My classmates are freaking thieves! Okay, well not MOST of them, but people regularly get books taken from their lockers, money taken from their backpacks' innermost pockets, uneaten food and candy and unopen drinks stolen, even gym clothes stolen. You'd think a group of high school children of whom a quarter drive Beamers, Mercedes or Volvos (the other three quarters all seem like they have new SUVs) wouldn't steal stuff. They do. The money thefts are partly to fund their drug habit (a good quarter of my senior class are well-known potheads-- you should have heard all the smirky references to "4-20" last week). The food/random books thefts are because some of my classmates have "issues" and "problems" and they totally get off on stealing stuff.</p>
<p>I'm not exaggerating. For a school this "nice" (and Catholic, actually), you'd think the kids would shape up. My public middle school had more moral kids than a lot of the ones I currently go to school with. </p>
<p>It's like what Holden said in "Catcher in the Rye." I'm totally butchering his quote here, but it's along the lines of: the more wealthy kids you have in a school, the more crooks there are.</p>
<p>That sounds stereotypical and mean-spirited, but it's shown to be somewhat true in a lot of experiences my friends and I have had with wealthy classmates.</p>
<p>Point: Nothing new, but could bear repeating: Always be wary, I guess. Even many of the the nice, well-heeled kids have a lot of unsavory habits (cough<em>stealing</em>cough!).</p>
<p>$95 isn't that much for a quality safe. Safes can get really expensive, and that's on the cheap side. If you want protection, then you should be willing to pay for it. Unless, of course, you can convince USC to provide those safes for you.</p>
<p>Ok, this is steaky, the one who's totally confused for college. I'm definitely questioning if I can leave stuff out, but I highly doubt that my roommate is going to steal my stuff. I'm only worried about maybe friends of a roommate and such. I don't think it's necessary to buy a safe but I think it's better just to keep stuff in your closet. And you shouldn't carry around so much money with you. Students at USC have a USC Credit Card or Debit Card adn they just go get a small amount they'll need. No need to stash all your stuff in a safe. It would be weird to me if I was your roommate.</p>
<p>well the topic wasn't to ask for a SAFE, but simply a closet with a lock. it's unlikely a ROOMATE would break into a closet with a key. and no i'm definitely not shelling out $95 for a safe. i'm not that rich, just rich enough to afford usc,but that's about it. and thank you ebay for taking this topic seriously. because theft DOES OCCUR, and there's no criminal PROFILE for it. </p>
<p>similar to PEALS, i too go to a private school with a similar tuition price. and like i mentioned earlier in my post, theft is extremely prevalent. the guy who i mentioned earlier lives in a very affluent area (upper class people live) and he still resorted to stealing. hell even winona ryder stole from saks?! tho she's (was?) a kleptomaniac.</p>
<p>i mean it's a good thing that some people have this kind of unconditional trust towards other people. well i don't really trust that many people in this world. of course my roommate have a possiblity of being a klepto/snoop, there's no reason why this possiblity isn't ruled out. just because you're a trojan doesn't make you the nicest, friendliest, most trustworthy person out there. this world is a cruel place. i hate to be so pessimistic, but i just want to be cautious.</p>
<p>Keep your door, your computer, and your bike locked. It's the nature of things.</p>
<p>nymph, it's also unlikely that a roommate would break into a safe. The point I was trying to make was that if USC does not provide locked closets or in-room safes, then buying your own safe would be one way to secure your security. If USC had locked closets and it satisfied you, I wouldn't have mentioned the safe. I'm serious about security too; I just don't feel a greater anxiety than you do.</p>
<p>BTW, if you are rich enough to afford USC, you are rich enough to afford a $95 safe. Have any of you asked USC at all yet about locked closets/safes? And for others, are there anchor plates for laptop security cables on the dorm desks? If not, can we install them ourselves? I see laptop security kits online wth anchor plates and superglue, haha.</p>
<p>yeh i did say that it's unlikely a room mate would break into anything. but i also said it's also POSSIBLE (not saying it's a high or low possiblity) where a roommate steals a phone or something of that sort (not a laptop) something that can be misplaced and then be in denial. </p>
<p>i just hope usc does or will provide a locked closet of some sort.
some people are going to usc on scholarship, financial aid. yes i may be your average middle class who can just about afford usc, but that doesn't mean i have money to fling around, it also means if i'm paying $3000 a semester for my room, i'm hoping i'll get a locked area to keep some valuables/privacy. </p>
<p>this post was asking if we have a locked closet, and apparantly there's none. that's quite dissapointing.</p>
<p>like i said, if your room mate steals your phone, what can you do? you have no camera or unless you have a witness, you just have no proof. a person is innocent until proven guilty. and you can't exactly have proof if your room mate already took the phone to sold or whatever. or money. i know over here in hong kong, all of my friends have gotten a phone stolen. yes stolen, not lost. at least once. and i know there are places where people buy second hand phones, it's everywhere in some streets, and you can sometimes get $100-200 for a good phone.</p>
<p>Here's a fun idea....copy paste all of your posts here onto a word document on your computer....ignore it, and then read it in three years...chances are then you might get an idea of why I think this whole thread is so funny.</p>
<p>Maybe th ethread will be alive three years down the line</p>
<p>Hahahahaha (need at least ten characters in my post)</p>
<p>holy cow this entire thread is ridiculous.<br>
not saying that security is a ridiculous topic but this is over the top.
i'm beginning to be more afraid of the kleptophobic than the kleptomaniac. is there any place on our housing form where we can request someone who isn't crazy?</p>
<p>omg since when was an area with a lock somewhere in your room too much to ask for?!?!?!?!</p>
<p>i'm not asking for a bigass fire proof bullet proof rust proof safe to store all my clothes, handbags, shoes in! i'm asking for a squeaky wooden drawer/compartment in the closet that has a LOCK or something.</p>
<p>and i'm not FREAKING out about that whole kleptomania thing, i'm simply SUGGESTING POSSIBILITIES. jeez, because we know everything is possible. and plus, it's not really that ridiculous of an idea. i mean, like i said, i know 2 kleptomaniacs or thieves that steal from their CLOSEST friendS with no remorse whatsoever, that's out of the population of 180 studnets in my year. that's a 0.1% which seems pretty low. but in the population of lets say, north, which is about the same, this means there is a chance that there MAY BE 2 kleptomaniacs.</p>
<p>furthermore there are many thieves i know of that steal from people, excluding friends. </p>
<p>and like i said, i go to a private international school in a suburban area of hk and the school fees are nearly $15,000 a year. so everyone's around middle classed. because there is no criminal profile for theives, so they can be in usc, they can be in harvard, they can be in MIT.</p>
<p>Sadly, you can't request "not crazy" on your roommate preference form...but there are little ways at hinting at this:</p>
<p>I believe (and it's been 3 years, so it might have changed a bit) a question that asks how neat you are. Really obsessive compulsive people tend to be very, very neat, so if you mark yourself as somewhere in the middle, that's one mark against a crazy.</p>
<p>It asks you if you would be willing to live with someone who smokes. Most crazy people I know are also chain smokers...so I marked no.</p>
<p>And lastly, I believe there is a question about what time you like to go to bed...I would try and remain in the middle on this one too...you don't want the guy that sits mumbling to himself till 4 am every day nor do you want the person that goes to bed at 6 am so they can wake at 4 am for their murder spree....lol</p>
<p>And finally, to Nymph...Yes, we get your point, you want a lock...what you should be getting out of this thread that although anything is possible, most people at usc are nice friendly non-kleptos. So you are allowed to calm down a bit.</p>
<p>thanks trojangirlie05, and sorry nymph for my sarcastic post...it's been a long day. In parkside the doors locked automatically, but is this not the case in the older dorms? I don't know if the door could have been permanently unlocked, but everytime I left I had to swipe my host's USC ID card to get back in. (a bit of a hassle)</p>
<p>wait i meant to say a 1% possibility not 0.1% with my luck i might get one of the 2 kleptos. of course most people in USC are nice and friendly and all that good stuff. but there's always the occasional bad apple.</p>
<p>and all dorms are non smoking...but i'm not sure if there's still the smoking option in the survey.
can anyone tell me when about i'll get those forms to fill out the room mate survey if i mailed in my housing depost in mid april?</p>
<p>Most dorms require you to swipe before entering, although some keep their entrance unlocked during the day. New/North, for example, has the main entrance unlocked during the day, but then the door leading to teh actual rooms, is always locked.</p>
<p>Nymph, when they ask for smokers/non-smokers, it's not so much for inside the room, since they are non-smoking, but just in general. I mean, they'll come in smelling like smoke, or they will go out to smoke, etc.</p>
<p>but the dorms didn't use to be non-smoking if i'm correct? i remember seeing a notice that says all dorms are non smoking from 2005 onwards.
no idea....</p>