I don't live in a Freshman dorm for a reason!

[thegiraffe]

I had to be at work today from 915-615. I work with children (this is my job at school - my job at home is the supermarket) - infants specifically right now. Therefore, I had to get up at 745 to get showered, dressed, presentable, get breakfast, eat said breakfast, and make the 15-min trek across campus to work. To prepare myself for this long day, I go to bed 11-1115 so I'll get enough sleep. Great - I'm gonna get a great sleep, right? Nope.

Fastforward to 1:30am. I hear thump-thump-thump-thump-thump. Fantastic-lunatics running in the hallway OUTSIDE MY F-ING BEDROOM! (My bedroom shares a wall with the hallway b/c of how the apartment is set up). This goes on for 15 minutes. I've had enough. (A sidenote: I'm 6' tall with an Irish temper, bad move to wake me up). I grew up 20 minutes from Cape Canaveral (where the shuttle takes off). I sleep through the sonic booms. If you've never experienced a sonic boom, it's kinda like two real close, loud firecrackers in rapid succession. They shake houses. If these idiots woke me up, they must be crazy loud.

So I go out to the hallway on the warpath. I'm gonna get this taken care of NOW. It's not the first time they've woken up, but it's likely to be the last. I know what apartment it’s coming from, because I see people run in it and shut, no, SLAM the door and lock it. I go knock on the door. I hear laughter and the equivalent of battle cries going on inside (it IS a male apartment for the record). Ok, so now I’m pissed. I proceed to BANG on the door. That doesn’t accomplish anything either. I yell “open the f***ing door NOW!” into the door (next door was already awake, how could they not be??), that didn’t do anything. I went downstairs to find an RA. They were all sleeping. Fantastic. I decide I’m gonna take care of this myself. I can be quite formidable when I’m pissed off, especially to ones who disturb my sleep. I go back upstairs and 2 of the guys are outside (not the one causing the problems). We eventually make peace, and the 2 guys tell me that they’re gonna take care of the guy. Evidently, he’s drunk and they can’t keep him contained (I’ve since found out that he’s not even 21!). I tell them to take care of it, and I don’t want to hear anything more that night, or I’ll go postal.

I didn’t hear anything more, but holy crap – I shouldn’t have had to deal with that in the first place. I play mommy for a living to babies and small children – I shouldn’t have to go home and do the same thing with people a year or two younger than me. I’m going to talk to the RA and let him know that they took care of it this time, but it’d better not happen again. That way, there’s a precedent set so that if it happens again, the offender can get his butt kicked to the curb (10p-10a are quiet hours during the week, and midnight-noon on the weekends. Noise you can hear in the hallway = you get written up).

I was stark raving mad. Ok, I’m still slightly perturbed. I was also treated like crap by a sucky employee today…that’s for a different story.

Good news is this day can’t get any worse. I’ve proceeded to crack a Smirnoff and I’m going to play some Nintendo (64-bit, of course!) and watch some TV to wind down. Yay for the weekend!

[Greenday]

I live in a freshmen dorm. I regularly have to step out my door during quiet hours and tell people to shut the f*** up, especially these two girls at the other end of the hall who are really loud. A few nights ago, we weren't even being loud. I was two rooms down and my roommate couldn't even hear us. One of the girls came to our room and asked us if we could quiet down. We all just stared at her until she walked away. Sweet revenge.

[LadyMage]

There's no such thing as quiet hours in my dorm, as I learned. My roomie and I are both seniors living on a floor full of sophomores who don't know the meaning of the words "SHUT UP WE ARE TRYING TO SLEEP!!!"

Consolation is we have three singers living next door to us. One of them has the most awesome tenor.

[Kiwi]

god we used to have inconsiderate people like that in the commons areas (re study areas)

headphones blasting SO LOUD I could make out the songs lyrics two desks over...it got SO bad they actually installed a "complaints" messenger on the computers so you could IM a staff member to go tell them to STFU!!!!!!

one guy acted so obnoxiously when I asked him to quieten down, I reached over and ripped his headphones out of the computer, activating the speaker. It was so loud the entire floor was filled with music and the staff came running in and kicked him out. Everyone backed me up when I claimed innocence.... I didnt do anything!

stupid loud people! you wanna scream go to a freaking rock concert

[protege]

People like that are *exactly* why I didn't live in the dorms after Freshman year. After the noise (and the usually drunk idiot roommate) at night, the dead quiet at Grandma's farm was ideal. Of course the only goofball I had to deal then with had 4 legs, a tail, and meowed :p

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

When I went away to college (after a couple of years at a community college), I skipped the dorms entirely and lived in an on-campus apartment.

I didn't have too many noise problems when I was trying to sleep. The few times I did, it was my own roommates causing them.

[Tanasi]

I liked living in the freshman dorm, then again I was the dorm director. My building was closest to classes and the girls dorms. Way back then we didn't officially have co-ed dorms but it wasn't unusual to have more girls in the building than guys.
I ruled with a wooden bat, no really I did. We didn't have to worry about their feelings back then, "I'm depressed" my usual response "Suck it up, P***y, everyone's depressed".
I also didn't care if the went to class much less passed, that was their business. I was more concerned in keeping quite and clean.

[Sunsetsky]

I actually considered living in the college apartments here (these ones are for juniors and seniors or anyone over 21). I'm glad I didn't now. I would be incredibly pissed if I was woken up by a bunch of immature children.

[thegiraffe]

IPF, this IS an on-campus, upperclassmen apartment. The average age of the residents here is probably 21 or 22. It sucks how just a few people can make it miserable for the rest of the floor.

Tanasi, I've kinda taken over the hall haha. I'm now going after the 2 apartments when I so much as hear anything in the hallway as a result of them (we have a peephole - I can see who it is). I went after them a week ago or so - I haven't heard anything yet. This weekend is the test of how effective it was. We shall see...

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

You must be stuck with some jerks on your floor giraffe. Bummer. I guess I was just lucky to not have to deal with a lot of noisy neighbors.

Anyhow, :ot: , I got a funny story from living in the apartments.

In my second year away at college, I lived in a first-floor apartment with a door that had a tendency to stick. This will be important later.

One Friday night I had been watching movies and enjoying some tasty alcoholic beverages at a friend's place. I came back to my place at around 1:30 or 2 in the morning and went to bed.

My roommate came in some time later. I was just starting to fall asleep when....


POLICE! LEMME SEE YOUR HANDS!

:eek:

There was a cop standing in my bedroom door with his flashlight on me. He asked for my ID and I reached for my wallet on the nightstand. Then the cop told me not to bother. (I must've reached a little fast and he figured I was reaching for a weapon). Then he had me go into the living room and sit on the couch.

There was another cop in the living room, and another outside the apartment with my roommate, who was standing spread-eagle against the wall.

What happened was, my roommate couldn't get into the apartment because the door was stuck and wouldn't open for him. So he decided to enter through the living-room window. Unbeknownst to us, an apartment close to ours was broken into and robbed, with a laptop and digital camera being stolen, among other things. Somebody saw my roomate going through the window, figured whoever robbed the apartment was striking again, and called the police.

After the cops found out my roommate was not a bad guy trying to jack whatever goodies he could find, they told us to call them if we ever had to get into our apartment via the window. The RA advised us to has maintenance fix the door; we never did.

[Seanette]

What happened was, my roommate couldn't get into the apartment because the door was stuck and wouldn't open for him. So he decided to enter through the living-room window.
I've done this when I locked myself out (for some reason, this is very easy to do in my current apartment). Thankfully, if any of my neighbors saw me doing this, they recognized me and did not call the police. :)

[Tanasi]

IPF, this IS an on-campus, upperclassmen apartment. The average age of the residents here is probably 21 or 22. It sucks how just a few people can make it miserable for the rest of the floor.

Tanasi, I've kinda taken over the hall haha. I'm now going after the 2 apartments when I so much as hear anything in the hallway as a result of them (we have a peephole - I can see who it is). I went after them a week ago or so - I haven't heard anything yet. This weekend is the test of how effective it was. We shall see...

Well someone has to be Mom. When I became dorm director I was still an underclassman but I was 6 years older than the next oldest dorm director so I was given the job (I was about 10 years older than the freshman). I became Dad. I take it that your building doesn't have an RA on each floor, my building had 2 RA per floor. All of my RA were military related. Some were ROTC the others were in the reserves. I did have guy that wasn't military related but he was studing to become a preacher and was captain of the boxing club.

[thegiraffe]

Our building is funky....it's one building, but it's divided up into 'towers'. If you're in 4 east (4th floor, east tower), and you want to get to 3 central, you have to go down the the first floor, then take the central tower elevator/stairs to the 3rd floor. There's one RA/tower. There's not really a reason to have an RA on each floor....well, not normally at least.

[thegiraffe]

Alright, so about two weeks ago, I went off on the geniuses who were running down the hall - I caught them red handed. About a week ago, I distributed the following letter to the floor (minus those apartments, of course):

Alright y’all, here’s the deal:

I’m sure we’ve all noticed the missing painting in the hallway (as well as the artwork that now takes its place). The painting isn’t missing. It was found broken on the hallway floor a few weeks ago. Now…we all know who broke it. [RA] can’t do anything about it because they won’t admit it. Here’s the problem though – if no one admits to it, the entire floor has to pay for it. We all have MUCH better things to pay for than the idiocy and immaturity of a few. Here’s how we know who’s responsible:

Very very early September 15, a good portion of the hall was woken up by a circus in the hallway courtesy of apartment 227. I know it was them because they woke me up, and I went out and confronted them. The slamming door of 227 as I went into the hallway provided pretty good evidence also. The painting was discovered missing in the morning, and [RA] eventually recovered it from their room after much coaxing. A few weeks ago, it was found broken on the floor.

There have been several noise complaints surrounding both apartments 227 and 225. Apartment 227 is responsible for the painting. The recent noise we’ve been hearing is courtesy of apartment 225. Although [RA] knows what’s going on, he cannot do anything unless he sees things happen. We, however, can. This is ridiculous. We live in this building for a reason. We’re all adults, we should act like them and expect the same from our neighbors. Here’s what I propose:

• If you hear excessive noise in the hallway (especially if it’s in the middle of the night), say something to the offenders. That’s the only way we’re going to get any inkling of peace around here. They’re disturbing the floor, and that’s NOT ok.
• If you see vandalism occur, try to (a) stop them, and (b) get some sort of documentation that they are, in fact, responsible. If it will be going on for a little while (by your estimates), call the RA. They live for this kind of stuff.
• We need to somehow convince Apartment 227 to confess to the broken painting. There are 19 of us on this floor besides the offending apartments. There are four people in each of the offending apartments. We have pretty good odds. Any ideas? We can’t do anything illegal, but there’s nothing illegal about instilling the fear of God (or the entire floor) into them.

If you can think of anything else, get a hold of me or [RA] somehow. I’m sick of playing Mommy. I do that all day at work, I shouldn’t have to come home and babysit my neighbors on the floor.

Let’s all help [RA] out to have a more peaceful environment. I’m sure we can all use a few good nights of sleep.

________________________________________

The hallway has been SILENT since this letter went out. They still haven't admitted to the painting, but it's a start. Hopefully vigilance will pay off, because I can't afford to pay for a painting that I've tried to defend if anything. I've talked to some of the people in the hall, and they've also expressed their displeasure with the idiot apartment. Only time will tell though....time will tell.

[Broomjockey]

I hope they own up to it. I got dinged for $10.00 last year because of unattributed vandalism in the public areas. That's not a lot, but we got lucky catching a few people.
Here's hopin' you get uninterrupted sleep and manage to nail those fools! :devil:

[Tanasi]

Good luck G with getting them to admit to the damages. After a while I didn't even try to pin the vandalism on one person/room. I charged the whole floor or building. No one ever saw anything until they got the bill. I charged for everything I could, leave a pizza box behind without a name on it: $5 (most likely a Dominos deal 1 topping medium $5 delivered), hork all over the bathroom and not clean it up: $5, shaving cream all over the walls and floor: $5, ripping the hall window screens: $25, TV lounge or Kitchen being excessivily dirty: $25, etc...
I'd lay it too them. Funny thing about it was the RAs on that floor were also acessed at the same rate.
I was also obcessive about the window screens, you ripped yours: pay me, your's fell off: pay me, such and such from where-ever broke my screen: I don't care pay me. A building just didn't look right if one or a few room didn't have screens.