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Opinion

Annoyance invades Taub basement

Jim McCormick
Opinion Columnist

As a campus resident, I notice things around campus that most students who commute to school don't. I live in a very confined space with few amenities and little privacy. The food isn't great. But I love it here anyway, and wouldn't trade my time here for the world.

There is, however, one minor problem with living on campus and in Taub Hall specifically. Our basement is one of the largest common areas open 24 hours on campus, but it gets a lot of uninvited guests. I might go as far as saying that they're trespassing in my living room, kitchen, dining room and laundry area.

The primary offenders are a group of girls who I presume are associated with one of the sororities on campus. I don't know who they are, but they seem to prance back and forth to loud and low-quality music, wearing stripper heels, pasted-on smiles and pants that have been padded badly with table napkins. None of these girls live here, and nobody in the building recognizes a single one of them. However, they still manage to get in at least twice a week and disrupt resident life, much to the annoyance of the students who live there.

The basements in the Quadrangle aren't public space. They are meant for the use of residents and their guests. Occasionally, The Honors College holds events down there, but it's simply because most of the people in Taub are members of The Honors College. During those times, we know the people there, and there are several residents down there to legitimize the event.

When people come into the common areas in the Quads, they are literally invading our living room. I'm fairly certain that none of these girls would like me to come into their house and play loud music that they don't like as they watch television, put on 5-inch clear stiletto heels and prance around without so much as an invitation. In fact, that would be trespassing, and they could sue me for it. 

We, as residents, use that area for several purposes. Sure, most of us have televisions in our rooms, complete with VCRs and DVD players. However, the rooms do not have enough seating to accommodate a medium-sized group of people to sit down and watch a movie or play a game of Halo on Xbox. Furthermore, almost none of the rooms have a stove or oven. When intruders come in, we generally lose use of those facilities because there are just too many of them to use the cooking area comfortably.

Recently, my new roommate has taken to fighting a war of music with these invaders. When they come down, he'll start playing various kinds of music that these girls, who seem to prefer sleepy jazz and mainstream hip-hop, don't appreciate. He's received lots of support among the other residents, who are just as fed up with their study and living space being taken.

Basically, the residents of Taub have had it. Please do your modeling/beauty pageant/whatever somewhere else. I know that the Oberholtzer ballroom is rarely used.

McCormick, a columnist for The Daily Cougar, 
can be reached at rantman_2000@yahoo.com.