Opinion: Students should be required to meet with housekeepers

If you’ve ever lived on-campus, you’ve probably seen your fair share of empty pizza boxes in bathroom trash cans, candy wrappers on the lounge floor, flattened cardboard boxes tossed out in the hallway and other trash left behind by careless residents. You’ve also seen all of the above disappear by the next morning.

Disclosure: It did not just go disappear of its own accord.

It was removed by the dedicated and hardworking housekeeping staff. If you were expecting house elves, we apologize for the letdown.

Leaving personal items in the bathroom, throwing away food in the bathroom trash can and discarding wrappers in the lounges and stairwells probably does not seem like a huge problem to you, but imagine that scenario multiplied by 964 residents. In a 10-story residence hall like Hinton James, the little things accumulate and place a strain on the housekeeping staff, who are not required to take out personal trash of residents.

Residents are expected to maintain cleanliness in rooms and common areas.

Before moving into residence halls, students sign the housing contract, which includes the Community Living Standards. After moving in, people are required to meet with their residential adviser to go over said standards and expectations.

But there is one thing left out of all the forms signed and meetings held. A face-to-face meeting between the housekeeping staff and the residents.

The housekeeping staff typically work when you are either asleep or outside of your room. Thus, consistent contact between housekeepers and residents rarely happens. The only way to communicate with residents about issues like leaving personal items in the shower or stowing bikes in the hallways is to leave written warnings on doors or if lucky, give a verbal warning in person.

Personal introductions between residents and housekeeping staff is essential because housekeepers need to inform students of their responsibilities and expectations of them. For example, housekeepers are not responsible for taking out the personal trash left in bathrooms. Residents are responsible for that. In certain dorms with private bathrooms, residents are also responsible for replacing toilet paper. Housekeepers are not.

The community directors of all communities should implement required face-to-face meetings between housekeeping staff and residents at the beginning of the school year. This interaction could coincide with the already required meeting at which RAs go over community standards, guidelines and other expectations. Doing so would perhaps make residents think twice before leaving a mess for housekeepers to deal with.

Besides required meetings held at the beginning of the year, white boards installed in lounges could be used as an open forum, similar to the CDS feedback board, Napkin Talk, in Lenoir Dining Hall. Messages like warnings, general announcements, concerns and compliments can be shared and viewed by all. Furthermore, communication can be simplified because currently, housekeeping staff typically inform RAs about problems, then the RAs warn the residents. This process can be improved.

You make the mess, you clean it up.