Editorial
Residents should keep dorms clean
March 12, 2008
It’s a sight that is all too common on the UW-River Falls campus. Whether it’s a pile of vomit on the floor outside your dorm room or garbage lining the hallway of your residence hall, it has to stop.
Vandalism on campus isn’t limited to just things that are outside, but to inside the residence halls and classroom buildings as well.
But the worst is when it happens in the place that you consider your home away from home. You wouldn’t throw a piece of pizza on the floor of your actual home, so why do it here?
There are easy solutions for this problem. The first is the easiest, don’t make a mess. If you’re going to throw up, do it in the bathroom. If you’re going to throw something away, throw it in the garbage. If you’re going to wash your dishes do it in the sink, not the drinking fountain.
Sure, some of the messes made can be easily cleaned up, some of them can’t and require the fixing or replacing and that can begin to add up.
Last year, UWRF public safety estimated $$ worth of damage done to residence halls during the academic school year.
Second, if you see someone doing something disruptive or stupid, don’t be afraid to call them out on it. Either try to help the situation yourself by picking up the trash or telling them to do it. Or, if you don’t want to try either of those you can always talk to an RA.
It appears that a majority of this type of behavior happens on weekends when students are around the dorms more often and have more time. A possible third solution is to have someone on staff to clean one time over a weekend so filth doesn’t have to sit around for almost three full days before it’s cleaned up.
However, the third option may be the hardest to accomplish due to the financial burden it may present the University, so it would be easiest if students could just make an effort to keep their living environment the best it can be.
The next time you feel obligated to wash your macaroni down the drinking fountain or leave your cans on the hallway floor, don’t. It’s not just a place for you to live. It’s a place where 200-300 other students call home as well.