The students, who asked not to be named, live in an all-girls flat in Heriot Row and said they had noticed strange goings-on all year.
Earlier this year, a photo of a man who had allegedly been creeping around the area was shared to a group chat, warning people to watch out for him.
Last month, that man was on their property, looking through their windows and using their tap, claiming he was searching for alcohol.
Yesterday that man, Rawiri Wheoki, 45, was sentenced in the Dunedin District Court after admitting two charges of being unlawfully in a yard.
Community magistrate Elder Robati deferred his sentence for six months, meaning if there are no further issues he will not receive any punishment.
Wheoki has a previous conviction — for doing an indecent act in 2018, after he stood behind a hedge watching a 21-year-old woman outside her house and performing a sex act on himself.
On that occasion, the judge noted the defendant also had a conviction for indecent assault from 2016.
The women in Heriot Row said they noticed him walking by nearly every week and even saw him the day after he was reported to police, which one flatmate described as "jarring".
"It’s nice to know that he has been dealt with," the other said.
But the issue was not isolated, they said.
Earlier in the year the students noticed "intimate items" disappearing from their washing machine.
Police were notified, but nothing came of it as far as they were aware, the women said.
The flatmates had also heard of a neighbour being followed while walking her dog, a man breaking into a flat in Queen St and a "weird guy" throwing things at a student flat recently.
"We don’t want to, obviously, see the worst in people, because we know that everyone has different walks of life," one flatmate said.
"It wasn’t this one thing that in isolation is necessarily really bad. I think it’s just when you compound it on different things that have happened throughout the year, then it obviously creates kind of a creepy environment," another said.
She thought the area should be safe because it was near a school and in a residential area where other students flatted.
"It doesn’t paint a very nice picture for the kind of stuff you have to put up with."
They hoped something would be done to improve safety in their area and other places where there were "clusters" of all-female flats.
THEY were told Campus Watch would increase their presence in the area, but they had not seen evidence of that.
"[There is a] presence that, like, is so felt on Castle and Leith ... whereas up here you’re sort of by yourself," one woman said.
A University of Otago spokeswoman confirmed Heriot Row was an area that was "regularly patrolled" by Campus Watch.
"This year, Campus Watch has been working closely with student tenants in the Heriot Row area, in collaboration with police, to support safety and wellbeing," she said.
Campus watch continually assessed areas of concern and adjusted its presence accordingly, the spokeswoman said.
The university encouraged students to report any suspicious activity to Campus Watch or police.
felicity.dear@odt.co.nz , Court reporter
