Maintaining the Residence Halls:

A Cooperative Effort

Student Rooms

The responsibility for keeping the students room clean must be assumed by the resident. Student cooperation is asked in maintaining a high standard of cleanliness and keeping maintenance repairs at a minimum. You will need to provide necessary cleaning supplies. Mops, buckets, and brooms are available for your use in each hall. You will be responsible for emptying your own trash in the proper trash chutes and exterior receptacles provided.

Maintenance

Each housing complex has full-time maintenance personnel. These individuals are involved in almost every aspect of maintaining the buildings. If you have individual maintenance needs in your room fill out a work order at the reception center. Please keep in mind materials or time may not be immediately available in every instance. Staff will respond as quickly as possible.

Painting of Rooms and Lounge Area

All painting requests are to be made through the RHD of the hall. Painting will be done on an as needed basis by university staff. All common areas will be painted by the university staff.

Pest Control

The residence halls are routinely sprayed for pest control. Prior to each spraying, residents will be informed by a sign posted on the floor’s bulletin board. The spraying is done with cooperation between the maintenance staff and the residence hall staff. Potential sources of pest problems include dirty dishes, open food, food wrappers, etc. All rooms are sprayed unless a physician’s statement is presented to the RHD at least two (2) days in advance of an announced spraying. Student not able to have their spaces sprayed because of medical concerns only may provide medical documentation to the Office of Residential Life. This documentation will be kept on file both in the Office of Residence Life and in the residence hall director office.

Health and Safety Inspections

The Office of Residential Life will conduct health and safety inspections once during mid-October of the fall semester and once during early March of the spring semester. The following procedures will be used:

1. Residents will receive from the Office of Residential Life one week prior to the inspection dates a letter advising them of the upcoming inspections.
2. Residents will be notified of the time their floor and rooms will be inspected and are encouraged to be present if possible.
3. The inspection team will include the Residence Hall Director, the floor Resident Assistant, and Building Maintenance personnel when available. Again, residents will be encouraged to participate, but are not required.
4. Inspections will be conducted with as minimum intrusion to the student’s personal space as possible. Staff will inspect what is in plan sight.
5. All inspections will start and finish within the one-week time period.

Residents whose room does not meet environmental standards will be given 24 hours to correct the problem.

Items looked for during inspection include but are not limited to:
•Policy Violations including: candles, road signs, alcohol, etc. (These items will be confiscated)
•Safety Issues including: proper electrical usage, attached screens, and working smoke detectors.
•General Cleanliness issues: Open food items, large piles of trash, situations that could attract health concerns.

In addition to health and safety inspections, all rooms will be inspected at the close of each fall semester to ensure fire safety and health safety over the break period.

Public Areas

Each residence hall is staffed with custodial personnel. The custodian is responsible for maintaining the public areas, such as bathrooms (with the exception to Northeast Morse and South Morse), laundry, lounges, and kitchen type areas in a neat, clean manner.

Residence Hall Damages

All residents of a room will be responsible for damage, loss, and custodial or maintenance work that is due to the students’ negligence. The university recognizes that some allowances must be made for normal usage. Each room is furnished according to room capacity and no inventory changes will be permitted unless authorized by a Residential Life staff member. While custodial and maintenance services are provided, residents share responsibility for general maintenance and upkeep of their community living environment. This environment includes the students’ rooms, living areas, hallways, rest rooms, public areas, and exterior facilities.

Damages to public areas will be assessed to the individuals responsible. Damage which cannot be attributed to an individual or group of individuals will be prorated to the smallest group (i.e. floor damage for which no one claims to be responsible, or for which no one is willing to come forward to indicate who is responsible), will be charged to the entire floor. Charges for such damages will be made by the RHD. If paid within five days there are no additional charges added. After five days a $10 collection charge will be added.

 

Last Updated May 1, 2007