Unlocked entrance doors and stolen possessions have been a part of everyday life at Bjølsen Student Village. The Foundation for Student Life in Oslo, SiO, now promises to fix it.

Entrance doors at Bjølsen Student Village have been unlocked since this summer, and anyone who wants to have been able to move freely around among the apartment buildings, laundry rooms, mail rooms and exercise rooms. Birgitta Skavoll, resident at Bjølsen and student of medicine at the University of Oslo, says to Universitas that the risk of theft at Bjølsen is high.
- If you don´t pick up your clothes in the laundry room immediately after the machine is finished there is an actual chance that they will disappear. That is not how it is supposed to be. It is really annoying that the card system at Bjølsen has been out of order for such a long time, she says.

Student at the Norwegian School of Management BI, Ole Jonas Nybø, agrees with Skavoll.

- I understand that some might feel unsafe. I visible form of guard here might have had a preventive effect on theft, says Nybø.

No answers

The situation is caused by a weakness in the entrance control system. The system failed in July/August due to a lack of maintenance. Several students in the student village have experienced theft in the laundry room, and some of them have put up notes in common areas where they search for their stolen possessions.
Skavoll is frustrated by how SiO handles the case.
- I have been pretty active when it comes to this case. We have sent three or four emails to SiO, and called them several times. Still we haven´t gotten a proper answer to why the system has been down for such a long time, nor when it will work again, says Skavoll.

Nybø also thinks that SiO should have fixed the mess with the system earlier.
- Two or three months have passed now, with no locks on our doors. It affects our safety, says Nybø.

Ignored the signs

Director of housing at SiO Tom Olstad admits that SiO could have picked up on the signals showing the system failure earlier.
- We noticed that the system was unstable before it collapsed. We know that this process has taken a lot of time and caused some problems, and we are sorry for that, says Olstad.
He explains that SiO wanted to analyze the collapses background, and then look at several solution alternatives, and this is what causes the long delay. The decision to change the system was therefore not taken until September.
- This is a complex system and a big investment, and we used such an amount of time to be sure that we chose the right solution.
There are no security guards in the student village, but SiO does have one so-called residential environment guard who is responsible to turn out should something happen.
- We considered the need for security guards and decided that it was unnecessary. We make decisions based on the feedback our residents give us, and so far at least I have not heard anything.

To be fixed

SiO has now started the process of exchanging the whole entrance control system by Bjølsen, and this means that all the students living there will have to renew their entrance cards. Olstad thinks this will be worthwhile in the long run.
- Instead of upgrading the already existing card system by Bjølsen SiO has chosen to change the contractor and introduce a new system solution. Even if this means an even longer waiting period and higher costs, it will be worthwhile in the long run.

The new system will cost well over two million kroner, and is to be fully installed December 17th.

Marie De Rosa DOT Translated by Ingrid F. Brubaker