 "Photo: MCT Campus")
While most students on campus may have locked themselves out of their dormitories at some point in time, the Office of Residential Life has recently become aware that some students are using wire hangers to open their locked doors.
The wire hanger method calls for a wire shirt hanger to be bent in a specific way so that when inserted under a door, it has the capability of catching the door handle and opening the door from the outside.
The discovery of this keyless method of opening locked doors has raised questions within the office and around the South 40 about the security of dorm rooms.
Normal lockout procedure involves going to the Office of Residential Life (ResLife) during business hours to request a new key.
“The very fact that the wire hanger method can be used to open doors with functioning locks causes me a bit of concern. There is no effective way for me to prevent against something like that,” freshman Jacob Witt said.
But according to frequent users of the method, using a wire hanger to open locked doors poses a minimal threat of breaking and entering crimes by non-residents because the method requires one to measure the precise height of one’s own door and does not work effectively on other doors.
“It’s not a skeleton key to the campus,” freshman Michael Laks said.
Other students have noted that the method does not work on suite doors in modern dorms and also does not work on any door in traditional dorms due to the height of the doors above the ground.
“I can only open doors within my suite and not the suite door itself,” freshman Chris Lo, a modern dorm resident, said.
According to Washington University Police Chief Don Strom, no breaking and entering crimes have been reported in which a room was broken into using the wire hanger method.
“We are not aware of any instance where a student’s room was entered to commit a theft based upon the [wire hanger method],” Strom wrote in an e-mail to Student Life. “Our experience is that unfortunately when most thefts occur from residence halls the victims have left their room doors propped open or unlocked. This is actually a greater concern to us.”
According to Tim Lempfert, the associate director of residential life, despite ResLife’s knowledge of the use of the wire hanger method, there are currently no plans in the works to counter the use of this method. Instead, ResLife has chosen to allocate security funds toward more productive means.
“This [wire hanger entry method] has not been a problem in our communities,” Lempfert wrote in an e-mail to Student Life. “Our department has placed a higher priority on allocating resources in other ways.”
Strom mentioned closed-circuit TV cameras, additional security presence in the residential areas, electronic locks on building and room doors and additional lighting as solutions the University is pursuing,
Many students who use the wire hanger method have explained that they use it only because the fees charged by ResLife for replacement keys are high. Others have noted that the current policy disproportionately affects residents in single rooms because they have no roommate with an identical room key.
“ResLife’s current policy is inflexible and expensive,” Lo said. “I live in a single and get locked out more frequently than my friends who live in doubles do. Those $25 lockout fees are too expensive and can really add up.”
According to Lempfert, ResLife only charges higher fees after business hours because the lockout process then is much more labor intensive.
“After business hours, students who are locked out typically need to have a staff member walk them to their room to unlock the door,” Lempfert wrote. “This often times results in waking the staff member up and having them come to the office in the middle of the night.”
ResLife is currently looking into installing a kiosk where students can purchase a replacement key on a self-serve basis. Should this idea come to fruition, ResLife anticipates a reduction in the fee incurred for lockouts.
While ResLife does not endorse the wire hanger method, there are no consequences for using it.
“As long as students are not damaging the locking mechanism or the door itself, there are no formal repercussions for [use of the wire hangers], although it is certainly not encouraged,” Lempfert wrote.
I lost my key too many times during freshman year, but I dealt with it and paid because it was my forgetful issue. There is no ResLife in the real world. There are only locksmiths who will probably charge twice that.