Operation Balloon

Throughout the term you may hear tales of a plague of black balloons appearing through postboxes, windows or even open doors. As part of Knowledge, this is our way of telling you how safe you’re keeping your property. The campaign is supported by West Yorkshire Police, Police Community Support Officers, Leeds University Union, the University of Leeds, and UNIPOL.

The campaign primarily targets crime hotspots in student areas of Leeds. Over the next few weeks, volunteers from the police, university, UNIPOL and local community will be taking to the streets of Leeds and assessing properties by simply looking out for open doors and windows.

The main aims are:

• To raise awareness of local crime
• To implement prevention techniques
• To generally increase security in the local area

It only takes two minutes to secure your property!

If you were unlucky enough to find a blown-up balloon floating around your property, not enough is being done to protect your home, your belongings, or even yourself!

If a balloon was posted through your letterbox then well done! This means that your property was secure when we came to visit. That doesn't mean, however, that security can't be improved.

Just locking your front door isn’t enough; there has been a recent increase in the amount of burglaries that take place through open first floor windows, and doors and windows that were shut but not locked. It takes two minutes to protect your property, so take a look at our checklist below and see where you and your housemates can improve.

Keeping your property safe – a checklist:

• Are the doors and windows locked?
  This doesn’t just mean the front door, but any internal doors and upstairs windows too. It might sound obvious but so many burglaries could have been avoided by just turning a key.
   
• Did you recognise the person who followed you into the building?
  If you live in halls it’s easy to assume that everyone coming in and out are students, but you could also be giving a free pass to a burglar by holding the door open or letting in a stranger with your key.
   
• Laptop sat on your desk? I-pod on the windowsill? Car keys in full view?
  Such items are easy pickings for a burglar. Keep valuable items out of sight - put them in a drawer or cupboard, or hide them under the bed. Also mark your property with the initials of your university and your student ID number - this makes it harder for a burglar to sell stolen goods and can help the police return items to you.
   
• How obvious is it that everyone’s out?
  Leave a light or radio on and draw the curtains when you go out to give the impression someone’s in - maybe use a timer switch and low energy light bulbs. The Knowledge team will be giving these out over the term so keep your eyes peeled!
   
• Are you insured?
  Keep lists of the make, model and serial numbers of your electronic items to help police track them down if they are stolen.

Bike Marking

Throughout the year the Police will be teaming up wih security staff from the various colleges and universities across Leeds to mark bikes on campus. Unfortunately cycle theft, especially on campus, is a fairly common crime. If you have your bike marked, Police will be able to track your bike back to you if it has been stolen and susequently recovered.

Any dates planned will be put up on our What's On page. If you want Knowledge to help you set up a bike marking session, feel free to drop us an email!