It’s that time of year again when exams are in full swing and you’re stressed, your roommate’s stressed, the entire campus is stressed. Sadly, I’m not an exam expert and I have no secrets to help you miraculously pass that lecture class you skipped for two consecutive weeks in April.
What I do have, though, is a friendly reminder to properly clean your dorm room before you check out. The hassle of packing up and cleaning on top of all the stuff you have to do for finals sucks, I know. When I heard the checkout requirements, I panicked. I don’t even own a broom, let alone a mop, but with help from our desk assistants I’ll prevail (and you will too!).
Here’s how I–and you–will avoid the $25 improper checkout fee:
1. Actually Mop or Vacuum Your Floor
I cannot stress this enough. The one step students seem to think they’re exempt from is cleaning their floors. This is not true. You will be charged.
If you have carpet, you need to vacuum; if you have tile, you need to mop. In the event that you’re unfamiliar with mopping, it’s important to sweep your room before mopping; otherwise, you’re just pushing sticky gunk around while you mop. It’s a 0/10 in terms of enjoyability.
I’ll say it again, you are not going to pull a fast one on your RA. They’ll know that your floor isn’t cleaned, charge you, and refuse to check you out until it is cleaned–so just avoid the trouble and clean your floors.
2. Do Not Stuff the Community Trash Can
Common space garbage cans are for common space garbage. Nothing is more infuriating than not being able to check out because someone in your hall was too unmotivated to go the extra flight of stairs to take their trash outside.
Your actions affect your entire floor, and when you don’t take your trash to an outside location and let pile it up in a kitchen or bathroom trashcan instead, you risk ensuring that your entire floor is charged for your laziness. So don’t be a jerk and take out your trash.
3. Use Your Front Desk
Remember how I said I had no mop? It turns out that that’s entirely okay. The front desk is there for that very reason.
If you go to your hall’s front desk, you’ll be given the option to check out whatever cleaning supplies and utilities you may need in order to get your room to the hall’s standards of clean. It’s free and it’s convenient, but be sure not to hoard everything for incredibly long.
Other students need to check out too, so when you’re done, don’t let the mop sit in your room an extra two hours. Take it back promptly.
4. Check Your Email
Your RA did the best they could to clue you in on everything that needs to be done at your required floor meeting that you all totally attended.
But in the event that your memory has failed you, check your email because your res hall director should have emailed you a “Res Hall Checklist” with an itinerary of what you need to get done before you can properly check out.
It features important tasks like “Take your bike home,” “Take your bike home” and “If you do not take your bike home, it will be donated and you will never see it again.”
But in all seriousness, the Res Hall email is important to check. Even if you just forget an item, you’ll be charged an improper checkout fee, so play it safe rather than sorry. These may seem like common sense, but based on multiple RA stories you’d be shocked.
So with that, I wish you all happy HAPPY finals, and may you’re blessed with lots of easy questions and get that 2% bump you need for that A.
– Updated by Hailey Seipel (10/18/2019)