Reaching for wrong pocketbook

Usually when you go to the store and break something, you are responsible for paying for the item you broke. When you pay money to rent an apartment or condo and see that vandalism has been plastered throughout the place which you call home, you expect to see that the vandalism is taken care of and that its damages are paid for by your landlord or owner. After all, that’s what the rent is for, especially when your rental contract clearly states that owners will be responsible for any items or property which is broken or damaged.

Recently, several students residing at the Oaks Residence Hall were caught in a dilemma similar to the one above. Students one day found one of their bathrooms plastered with, among other things, pizza and other debris inside the men’s restroom in the A-bottom complex of the Oaks. A Housekeping staff member discovered the mess the following morning.

Residential Life administrators didn’t like what happened to the restroom and thought that each resident in A-bottom should pay for the damages and cleaning cost of the bathroom. And what a price to pay for lessons in bathroom maintenance. Each tenant at A-bottom was threatened with a fine for the mess—which essentially, they did not create.

The students at A-bottom, knowing that they were not all responsible for the damage were caught off-guard by the unwarranted accusation.

This is wrong. Residential Life shouldn’t charge or assume, let alone threaten, the 18 residents in A-bottom with housekeeping fees for a mess they neither created, nor can it be proved who created.

What kind of service are you doing to the students and tenants, for that matter, when they are the very people making the paychecks possible for both Residential Life Coordinators and housekeeping? What kind of attitude are you showing to the adults of A-bottom by making an entire floor pay for something they didn’t do, while assuming they did it? Granted the parties responsible didn’t act much like adults when the created the mess but what does it serve in pointing fingers in this who-cares-who-dunnit-but-you-live-here-so-pay-for-it-mystery?

Individuals are responsible for their own actions. Therefore, a closer look should have been taken into this matter and not an assumption that all the students of A-bottom could have made such a mess and thereby making all of them pay for such a catastrophe.

An entire group of people should not be reprimanded for the work of what appears to be a few people, especially the women, who don’t use the men’s restroom.

Also, the residents at A-bottom should take an even harder stand on issues like this and not be bullied by area coordinators who assume, point fingers and don’t use proper communication skills necessary to run the area.

The area coordinator for the residence hall recently sent out a memo to the residents of A-bottom regarding the whole ordeal. The memo, addressed to each tenant, explained that students should be cautious with unfamiliar faces lingering in their lobby. It also said that no additional charges will be fined to the tenants for the housekeeping job. The decision to circulate a memo explaining the bathroom situation was a good idea. However, Residential Life staff should have been more patient and not been so hasty to infer and scold the residents. Everyone would have been benefited in this situation if the memo had been circulated prior to all the finger-pointing hoopla. But it’s a little too late now and that’s too bad.

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