Three students were left without their laptops and one was without her purse after two burglaries in Henle Village on Wednesday that the victims attributed largely to the building’s front entrance door being broken.

Joshua Tecchio (COL ’08) and his roommate David Ly (COL ’08), who live in a Henle in the building with apartments 83-90, said they discovered at 8 a.m. that their laptops were stolen.

Tecchio said he is relatively certain that he locked the door to his apartment when he came back from studying around 4 a.m.

“I’ve flipped this switch a bunch of times,” he said, referring to the lock on his door. “I can’t say 100 percent, but I am almost positive I locked it that night. I never flick that switch without turning the knob.”

Both said that they had not heard any noise and that there was no sign of a break-in.

Tecchio and Ly said that the combined value of their laptops was around $3,400.

Although Tecchio’s laptop was purchased in August, it contained his personal files from as far back as age 10, he said.

“Everything and anything was on that laptop. . I’ve lost every picture, every song I’ve ever owned. It was all on that laptop,” Tecchio said. “I don’t want a computer; I want my computer.”

One floor down , another apartment was burglarized between 4 a.m. and 8 a.m. on the same morning. Kristine Liwag (MSB ’08) said that her Coach wristlet containing cash, credit cards, her GOCard and a key to the apartment was stolen. She said there were two $40 charges – both at a Metrorail station – on her credit card after it was stolen. Jennifer Wu (SFS ’08), who had just purchased her laptop less than two weeks before for $1,681.39, said that it was also missing. And Alice Retson (COL ’08) said that her tote bag, a souvenir from Japan, disappeared that morning as well, although she said it had no value.

Toni Chan (MSB ’08), the victims’ apartment-mate, said that as the last roommate to return to the apartment that night, she did not check to make sure the door was locked because it normally does so automatically. She said, however, that she was sure it was fully closed.

The stolen items from the girls’ apartment totaled around $1,800, they said.

The victims said they believe the suspect entered the apartment building through its front door, which could not close completely for about a week. The students said that since people could enter without swiping their GOCards, it would be easier for a suspect to gain access to their building.

Students in the building said they saw university maintenance workers trying to fix the door more than once during the week.

“Obviously yes, I hold the university responsible,” Tecchio said.

Liwag and her housemates said that they did not think the university treated the break-in seriously enough.

“When I called facilities, the person on the phone said, `Facilities deals with emergencies all the time. They’ll get to it when they can,'” Liwag said.

After several calls, Liwag said someone was sent to change the lock. She said that when another maintenance worker inspected the door after the crime was reported, he told her that the door had not been fixed properly.

The door was fixed by yesterday evening.

Chan sent an e-mail to Associate Vice President for Risk anagement Joseph Yohe Wednesday night complaining that the university’s response to students’ requests that the door be fixed was inadequate and asking that she and her housemates get reimbursed for the stolen items.

“As students living on campus, we expect a certain level of safety, and we are gravely disappointed that Georgetown was unable to keep us safe because of poor response time to a week-old broken door,” Chan wrote in the e-mail. “By not addressing this issue properly, Georgetown’s disregard for the students’ safety is clear.”

In response to the incidents, the resident assistant of the building, Lindsay Van Kirk (SFS ’09), sent out an e-mail requesting that residents show her their GOCards in an effort to see if the door had been broken deliberately by a resident who lost his or her GOCard.

“There were three attempts made to fix the main door to the stairwell prior to this incident, and Facilities has reason to believe that someone has been removing the screws to the door, rendering it unable to close. There is the possibility that it was a resident who has lost their GOCard and did not want to replace it,” Van Kirk said in the e-mail.

Karen Frank, vice president for facilities and student housing, was unavailable for comment.