The thefts of two cars and a car battery at the Rains Graduate Housing parking lot within the past few months have raised security concerns, with Rains residents expressing anxiety and frustration over the crimes.
Blake Wendland, a first-year Ph.D. student in applied physics, parked his Toyota Prius on Bowdoin Street over winter break. When he returned, he found nothing but shattered glass on the ground where his car had been.
Wendland, a resident at Rains, reported the car stolen to Stanford University Department of Public Safety (SUDPS), who told him that officers would track his license plate across highways. However, he has not heard anything from SUDPS since January and said he feels security has been somewhat unhelpful.
“The police’s attitude didn’t really make me super happy,” Wendland said. “They were kind of dismissive of the claim.”
The Daily has reached out to SUDPS, Residential & Dining Enterprises (R&DE) and Rains Housing Services Center for comment.
Adam Dai, a sixth-year Ph.D. student in electrical engineering, said his car was stolen from the Rains parking lot at the intersection of Bowdoin Street and Pine Hill Court, sometime between March 2 and March 6. He said he has not received any updates since reporting the theft to police on March 6.
Dai said that there are no security cameras facing into the parking lot, making it difficult to gather any information or find the stolen cars. “It seems like [SUDPS] is doing all that they can with the resources they have, but it also seems like the resources and the security infrastructure is lacking,” Dai said.
When Dai first noticed his car was missing, he didn’t consider the possibility of a theft. “I was telling myself, ‘Oh, I must have forgotten or maybe it’s somewhere nearby,’” he said. But after looking for nearly an hour with friends and a deputy, he reported it stolen.
In an email thread reviewed by The Daily, Rains residents stressed the need for increased security. Residents said that police officers and Rains Housing Services have provided no security updates.
Dai has lived in Rains for five years and said it was unusual for security issues to arise around graduate housing.
“I was just kind of shook that this could even happen,” he said. “The parking lot just feels weird walking through it now. It’s felt like an extension of where I live, and it now feels like I can’t really trust that.”
Since the thefts, Wendland has been hesitant to replace his car with a new one. “Especially with all the other cars getting preyed upon, it’s hard for me to get excited about having another car to put in danger,” he said.
Wendland applied for Stanford’s Emergency Grant-In-Aid, but was denied any funding to help with his car being stolen. The emergency aid, which is designed to assist graduate students facing a financial emergency that may impede academic progress, can provide up to $5,000 per academic year and $1,000 for computer repair.
According to a University website, the emergency aid does not cover anything in the student budget, which includes transportation and personal expenses. Wendland also said he received an email stating that aid did not apply to vehicle loss.
In addition to vehicle thefts, Jorge Diaz, a staff engineer at SLAC National Accelerator, had his car battery stolen early March 9 after leaving his car parked on Bowdoin Street.
Diaz, who was coming back from a party, found his car vandalized, his windows broken and his battery stolen. “I always park my car around campus, no issues at all,” he said. “This is the first [incident].”
Praful Vasireddy, a fifth-year Ph.D. student in electrical engineering, started an email conversation with Rains residents to share Dai’s story, which led Blake and a friend of Diaz to share their similar reports as well.
These crimes have increased broader concerns about safety among Rains residents. Vasireddy worries about keeping his car in the Rains parking lot where the incidents have occurred, but said he has no other choice.
“There’s not really any other options, so I have to just keep parking in this lot, which feels pretty bad,” Vasireddy said. “It does feel kind of powerless, like I don’t really have an option.”
According to Vasireddy and Wendland, Rains housing currently charges $47 per month for parking, which gives residents a permit for the Rains parking lot and street parking as well.
The increased incidents have affected former Rains residents too. Alexis Voulgaropoulos M.S. ’24, a third-year Ph.D. student in chemical engineering, who lived at Rains for two years before moving off campus, was included on the email chain where Wendland and friends of Diaz and Dai detailed the thefts.
“As an owner of a car myself, I think seeing an email thread like that kind of made me on higher alert,” Voulgaropoulos said.
After someone attempted a break-in to her car off campus last summer, Voulgaropoulos is grateful that awareness about car thefts is increasing.
“It’s an important issue,” she said. “I’m glad people are starting to talk about it more because cars are important.”
