With vandalism charges amounting to $13,800 (approximately $142 dollars per resident) in the Alfond Apartments alone, hall vandalism has once again become a heated topic of discussion on campus. Students and faculty have openly expressed distress about the amount of vandalism committed campus. Few, however, have considered how the Physical Plant Department (PPD) and the employees, who are called in to fix the damage, feel about the issue.

Director of the Physical Plant Patricia Whitney estimates that PPD staff spends between 15 and 20 hours a week clearing hall vandalism. This can include cleaning party messes, rewiring exit signs, replacing fire extinguishers, putting away furniture from common rooms, etc. “The time the staff spends on this kind of stuff is time they could be spending fixing the heating in your room or cleaning the common rooms,” Whitney said.

“Although few custodians would admit to students that it is frustrating to have to clean up party messes, most would admit that it is discouraging,” one custodian said.

Whitney understands that some damage is bound to occur. She explained that broken soap dispensers are a common problem in dorms, but PPD is more concerned with vandalism that interferes with student safety. For example, students have been known to tear down exit signs and steal fire extinguishers. “Now, what happens if there is a fire?” Whitney asked.

A campus electrician holds a similar sentiment. “You rewire one exit sign only to find out there are four more to rewire in the same dorm. Cleaning up vomit isn’t fun, but we expect to have to do that because we work at a college. We don’t understand why students steal exit signs,” he said.

In fact, Whitney says that the number of exit signs stolen each weekend has reached new highs this year. She referred to one weekend when at least 11 exit signs were torn down across campus. “We may not have 11 spare exit signs sitting in our stock room. This becomes a real issue.” Even students admit that stealing exit signs has become a “trend” this year. “I guess it’s just badass to have one,” Eliza Appleton ’13 said. “It’s kind of like stealing street signs. There’s no real point. It’s just considered ‘cool.’”

Many students may not realize that stealing exit signs is not only giving the PPD staff more work to do, but it also interferes with people’s safety in their residence halls. “If there is a fire in the middle of the night, you need to know how to get out of a building. It’s for your own sake,” Whitney said.

When it comes to charging students for hall vandalism, there is a list of set prices. But, as Whitney explained, charging is not an exact science. The charge for a broken soap dispenser, for example, depends on whether PPD can fix the existing dispenser or whether they need to buy a new one and assemble it. PPD and the Office of Campus Life mutually agree on charges for things like party messes, vomit and safety issues, Whitney explained. “Campus Life is harder on safety issues because they are such serious issues,” she said.

While students may find a few fines inconvenient at the end of the semester, the residence hall custodians are the ones who are faced with the task of cleaning up after students.

“Some people ask why we don’t just make students clean up their own vomit, but we’re not going to ask students to clean it up because of the safety hazard,” Whitney said. Vomit is classified as a safety hazard because it may contain bloodborne pathogens or microorganisms that could carry disease. Because this is a real safety concern, custodians must take extra precautions when dealing with vomit.

The issue of vomit clean-up pales in comparison to many of the other horrific problems that PPD has dealt with over the years. According to Whitney, about 10 years ago, PPD had to shut down an elevator in a dorm because students were using it as a urinal every weekend. “We once even had a case of a student defecating in the library,” Whitney said.

Whitney encourages students to remember, “These [custodians] are human beings; some are the age of your grandparents.” Additionally, “Custodians come wanting to make the dorm a wonderful place to live,” Whitney said. “They can’t do this if they’re busy scraping peanut butter off the walls.”