Orchard Trails is located right off the University of Maine campus and could perhaps be considered safer than living in the dorms. In the dorms almost anyone can get into the buildings by swiping their Maine Cards where as in the apartment complex you need a key to get into the front door and then into the apartment itself. According to the Web site California NOW, 60 percent of rapes committed on campus occur in the victim's residence, but is Orchard Trails in this 60 percent or is it the other 40 percent.
Recently since the new apartment complex has opened, doors to the outside of the buildings have been propped, a penny stuck inside the doors to make it easy accessible and now the whole hinge to building eight's door is completely taken off and is open to anyone. Shayna Cavaleiri lives with two males in her apartment and said she feels safe living with them and feels if she did not live with males she may be more frightened.
"I like when the door doesn't require a key, it's just convenient not having to search in my purse for five minutes, but i do not like the thought of people being able to come in without a key," Cavaleiri said. Convenient or not, residents do feel uneasy about doors being jammed and open to the public and with other residents having guests over and not knowing who is coming and going out of the apartments, Shayna says that is also frightening.
As of September 1st there have been three assaults. In building eight there was a domestic dispute between a female that lived in the complex and her boyfriend who was visiting. In building ten, resident Charlie Sutter was assaulted by visitors at a party in that building on Friday, Sept. 29. "I was walking outside and there were about three guys smoking and all of a sudden they waited until I wasn't looking and hit me in the back of the head with a magnum flash light,"Sutter said. He had to spend the next day in the hospital, fracturing his left eye socket and stitches above his eye.
Recently since the new apartment complex has opened, doors to the outside of the buildings have been propped, a penny stuck inside the doors to make it easy accessible and now the whole hinge to building eight's door is completely taken off and is open to anyone. Shayna Cavaleiri lives with two males in her apartment and said she feels safe living with them and feels if she did not live with males she may be more frightened.
"I like when the door doesn't require a key, it's just convenient not having to search in my purse for five minutes, but i do not like the thought of people being able to come in without a key," Cavaleiri said. Convenient or not, residents do feel uneasy about doors being jammed and open to the public and with other residents having guests over and not knowing who is coming and going out of the apartments, Shayna says that is also frightening.
As of September 1st there have been three assaults. In building eight there was a domestic dispute between a female that lived in the complex and her boyfriend who was visiting. In building ten, resident Charlie Sutter was assaulted by visitors at a party in that building on Friday, Sept. 29. "I was walking outside and there were about three guys smoking and all of a sudden they waited until I wasn't looking and hit me in the back of the head with a magnum flash light,"Sutter said. He had to spend the next day in the hospital, fracturing his left eye socket and stitches above his eye.
Take a quiz and see how safe you are in your apartment: http://crime.about.com/library/blaptsafety.htm
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