The Student Room Group

Do you lock your bedroom door at uni?

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Original post by monica95
If you mean how do you randomly just get to know them, by like approaching them, my brother (who's in his first year at uni in the UK) as soon as we were moving all his stuff to his room, he saw lots of other people on his hall also doing the same thing thus they were all more approachable and stuff rather than locked up in their rooms so he just said hi to every person he saw and maybe asked a question. But they all shared a kitchen (the people in his corridor) thus rather than eating in his room, he'd eat there and just talk and introduce himself to everyone that hung out there.


I actually meant what did you do with regards to locking your door when first moving in, not how to get to know your flatmates...

Thanks though for all the replies :smile: I haven't booked my accommodation yet, so I'm not sure what the security will be like. It's in a pretty small town though, not like London or anywhere with lots of crime, so hopefully there won't be any issues with people getting into the flat. I think I'll probably be locking my bedroom door quite a bit though, at least at the start. It sounds like that's not too uncommon from what everyone's said, so yeah, thanks :smile:
I only lock my door when leaving my flat, when I'm in its always unlocked and I don't bother locking it when I'm going to the kitchen. There are 8 of us in the flat and you need a key to get into the flat. I've never had anything taken whilst I've been in the kitchen.
Always locked and I made sure I kept an ear out for the doors opening/slamming.

I dont trust other people unless they are family.
Original post by ellakrystina
I do everytime I leave the flat. I used to lock it when I was going to have a shower (I have shared bathrooms) but I don't bother now because it's unpractical carrying all of my stuff from the bathroom and then trying to fiddle with my key. Generally, as long as I'm in the flat and awake, my door is unlocked.

It's not that I don't trust my flatmates not to steal my stuff, I just don't trust others. Some flatmates leave the flat door off the latch so if someone wanted to steal stuff then they could easily tailgate someone going through the block's front door and enter my flat.

We have a similar situation here. My halls are divided up into 5 'blocks'. There's a lock on the main door that you need to use your key fob for, and then a separate one on the door for each block. Once you're inside however, a lot of flats leave their front doors unlocked and I've heard about so many people getting things stolen from their kitchen this year, including my boyfriend who lost out on a few tins of tomato soup...

Generally I just lock my bedroom if I'm going out, and we try to keep the front door locked all the time. A friend at Glasgow Uni leaves her bedroom door unlocked all the time and says her flatmates just go in anytime they want to borrow something (even if she's not there), and I couldn't live like that.
Original post by Vitamin D
We have a similar situation here. My halls are divided up into 5 'blocks'. There's a lock on the main door that you need to use your key fob for, and then a separate one on the door for each block. Once you're inside however, a lot of flats leave their front doors unlocked and I've heard about so many people getting things stolen from their kitchen this year, including my boyfriend who lost out on a few tins of tomato soup...

Generally I just lock my bedroom if I'm going out, and we try to keep the front door locked all the time. A friend at Glasgow Uni leaves her bedroom door unlocked all the time and says her flatmates just go in anytime they want to borrow something (even if she's not there), and I couldn't live like that.


Yep, that's how my flat/block is laid out. The front doors to the flat automatically lock but people sometimes keep them off the latch in the evenings when friends are over. I haven't seen anything go missing from our flat... yet.
Reply 45
Yes, I have 30kg of pasta and rice in my room. If that got nicked I would starve.
Reply 46
when I was a kid, me and my friends used to go urban fishing. What we would do is this: Poke a fishing rod into first floor student diggs windows and fish for random stuff. My best catch was 3 socks in one. We coulda fished proper catches, but it was just for ****z and giggles. We always let the fish go, we weren't thieves :tongue:

It was always funny when the person in the room noticed. I mean imagine sitting at your computer while a fishing rod is probing your room behind you. LOL
When I start uni in September, I will also always make sure my door is locked when going off to the shower/kitchen because unfortunately from previous experience, certain people cannot be trusted and are without a sense of morality!

I would be highly sceptical of the trustworthyness of everyone who I am sharing with over the initial few weeks/months but after a certain period of time, I should have sussed whether my housemates are genuine or not but even then, as mentioned by others you have the issue of other people who might be complete strangers to you wander in and out of the flat. Just because somebody is a friend of a housemate who you get on well with, doesnt necessarily mean he or she is going to extend that friendship to you as well.

Sorry for being so pessimistic!
(edited 11 years ago)
Reply 48
Only lock it when I'm sleeping naked/when I have a girl over and don't forget. Other than that I sometimes don't even lock it if I leave for a few days - I let flatmates use my printer and no one really pranks anyone.

I think you have to assess it when you arrive, I am a reasonably decent judge of character, figured it was safe and just propped my door open for the first few weeks. Other flat mates did this too which I guess is a kind of mutual declaration of trust :smile:.
Reply 49
Do you guys lock your door when you go to sleep? I mean, I think I would be worried that what if there was a fire and they (or I) needed to break in to be rescued.
Reply 50
Anyone know what it's like in self catered flats as opposed to catered halls? (with locking doors etc. I mean)
Reply 51
I locked my door when I left the flat and at night when I slept or when I showered (had an ensuite) you can never be too careful cause people used to just walk in/out of our flat at really random times.
Original post by Arianto
Anyone know what it's like in self catered flats as opposed to catered halls? (with locking doors etc. I mean)


I lived in a self-catered halls in my first year, 13 girls on my floor(middle one), and 13 boys above and below.
We all had our own kitchen cupboard but only 3 fridge/freezers so alot of sharing went on.
You could put a padlock on your cupboard but no one hardly did this although I did when going back home for holidays, and near Christmas time there were concerns cos some of our food kept getting stolen (I lost these chicken fillets - weren't pleased).

As for bedroom doors, at the start of the year I would lock it even when I went toilet, but later when we were all very familiar with eachother, I only locked it when I left the floor/halls completely.
Reply 53
I lock it when I go out (as in out of the accommodation block, I don't lock it when I'm in the house), when I go to bed at night and any time in between when I'm urm... busy. Sometimes it's locked purely because I haven't been out of my room all day if I'm having a lazy day (it's en-suite).

I don't lock it to go to the kitchen etc.

I had a housemate once who NEVER locked her door - not at night, not when she went out... never; Best part? She was paying £15 a month for contents insurance, that, obviously, wouldn't pay out if the room was left unlocked.

Had a giggle at that.
Always lock it when I am out of the house or sleeping. Right at the beginning in halls I locked it when in the shower too, before I had gauged what my flatmates were like.
Original post by Luxray
Do you guys lock your door when you go to sleep? I mean, I think I would be worried that what if there was a fire and they (or I) needed to break in to be rescued.


I can't think of any situation where that'd be an issue - and I've heard of people having their rooms burgled while they sleep
Reply 56
I had a lock in first year. Many people didn't lock their room at all but I had flatmate issues so did when I was out. The only other time I locked it was when I went to bed and they went out drinking. They tended to come in and often fall into my door so I'd prefer them to bang off it than fall into my room
When I'm asleep/having a ****/got a guy over/leaving the flat for more than a few minutes.
Reply 58
Ours lock behind us!
Always except when I go to the kitchen. We've pranked each other in the past 2 years too much so leaving my door unlocked when I go out would be too risky. :tongue:

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