By Danielle Wirsansky

Many students are excited to be able to leave the dorms and instead live in off-campus housing. There are no Resident Assistants to watch over you, no room sharing, and maybe even no bathroom sharing either when you live off-campus. And living off-campus certainly gives you more freedoms (as well as responsibilities).

But it is also no walk in the park and there are definitely more risks when you live off-campus than on campus. You have a higher risk of break-ins, floods, and more. In fact, according to a report released by the U.S. Fire Administration in recent years, “94 percent of fatal campus fires examined took place in off-campus housing.” Obviously, you want to be safe while living off-campus. Read on for some off-campus neighborhood safety tips!
 

via Pexels

Check out the Crime Rate of Your Neighborhood

This is a step you should ideally take before you move into your off-campus neighborhood housing. However, if it is too late and you have already signed a lease or even moved in, it is still not too late to understand what you have gotten yourself into or to prepare for or adjust the way you have been going on. Check out the crime rate not only of your city but of your area and neighborhood too.

There are many sites that can provide you with this information as you search for it. Many of them will even break down the statistics by category such as type of crime, year of the crime, number of incidents of a specific kind of crime, and more. By breaking it down in such a way, you will be more easily able to tell what kind of crime, if any, occur in your off-campus neighborhood housing. Maybe there won't be very much crime, and that would be great. However, if there is crime, at least now you will be aware of it and better able to protect yourself and your belongings. Knowing what kind of crime is prevalent in your area will help you to prepare and protect yourself.

Park In Brightly Lit Areas

This is a great rule of thumb, whether it is being applied to your off-campus neighborhood housing or almost anywhere you go from campus to shopping to a friend’s house. In a brightly lit area. You do not want to invite danger or anyone or anything lurking in your neighborhood by parking far away from your apartment in an area that is dark in dimly lit and where you cannot see well and no one can see you well. It will give you your parents your roommate and your friends as well as yourself a better Peace of Mind if you park in a brightly lit area. Even if an area has a low crime rate you never know what could happen and it's better to be safe than sorry.

Get Renters Insurance

According to Allstate, “A renters insurance policy is a group of coverages designed to help protect renters living in a house or apartment. A typical renters insurance policy includes three types of coverage that help protect you, your belongings, and your living arrangements after a covered loss. Renters insurance (sometimes referred to as "tenant insurance") helps cover unexpected events — otherwise known as covered perils. You may not always be able to prevent certain situations, such as theft, a break-in, or a visitor's injury, and that's where renters insurance comes in.”

One of the dangers of living off-campus is that you never know what could happen and you will be much less protected than you would be if you lived in a non-campus dormitory. A great way to protect yourself against myriad different disasters is to get renters insurance. Your apartment could flood, it could go on fire, it could be robbed. There are so many different things that could go wrong. When you have renters insurance, it helps you make sure that you are protected, that your belongings are protected and that you will have the funds and means to find a better place to live or even a place to live if something happens to your housing.

Check Your Fire Safety Gear

 As mentioned earlier, fires are incredibly prevalent in off-campus housing. To make sure that you are protected make sure that you know where all your fire safety gear is and have checked it. Have you checked the batteries in your smoke detector? Have you tested to make sure that your smoke detectors will go off? According to the report mentioned earlier, “Smoke alarms were either missing or had been tampered with (disconnected or the battery removed) in 58 percent of fatal campus fires. “ Do you know where your fire extinguisher is? And do you know that that works as well? Does your apartment have fire alarm sprinklers, and if so, where? You want to be smart and alert to better protect yourself against fire-related dangers.

These may seem like ordinary precautions but because they are so ordinary, they are often overlooked or forgotten, which makes misfortune more likely to occur and succeed. Protect yourself while living off-campus by trying a few of these tips!