With the summer weather comes open doors and windows, which provides increased opportunity for thefts to occur.

It is easy to pop into a house or an open on-campus room and take something if the door is open with no one around. Why make it easy for someone to take what someone else has earned?

Make it hard. Lock the door when leaving for any period of time and do not let strangers in the room.

Residents cannot control other people’s guest, which means everyone who is brought onto the floor will have access to any rooms if the door is left open.

There are also rare cases when a resident will give keys to a friend and let the come and leave the floor as they please.

If there is someone who does not belong on the floor, confront them and make sure they have an escort.

Students who feel uncomfortable with confronting someone, get the person in charge of the floor or building or call the police.

The same goes for cars. It gets hot in cars when they are sealed up for a couple of hours, but do not leave a window open.

It is not hard to grab a nearby stick and use it to poke an automatic lock or unlock a door if the window is open even an inch, but it is really difficult if the window is shut completely.

That is not to say never open a window, but make sure it is completely closed before leaving the car.

It is wise to hide anything valuable that is kept in a car and not leave it in sight of the windows. A phone or iPod left on the dashboard is a treasure without a treasure hunt.

All of this should be common sense, but it is easily forgotten if a student is running late for class or just going down the hall to see a friend.

If someone is out of sight of their room or car, they should not allow some easy access to their stuff.

If a student sees something suspicious they should call the police, whether on or off campus.

Thefts increase during the summer because of the open doors or windows but also because there are less people to report to the police.

Students should not make it easy for someone to steal their belongings when they can prevent it by making sure their rooms and cars secure.