Here in Belgium (at least where I study) the student rooms are organised a bit different... Anyways, I live with 5 others, shared kitchen and bathroom, all in (except for the phonecalls on the house phone), 184€ / month
my hall = 30 people, one big bathroom. The new wing has two rooms shareing one bathroom. What is really dumb about the new wing is that the sink, toilet and shower are all in one room. Every other college I've seen has the shower and toilet in one room, and a sink in each connected room- that way when people are shaveing or brushing their teeth in the morning someone else can be in the shower. I have seen any dorms with a kitchen, but they at least provide a mini-fridge to each room, and the hall shares a microwave (which looks horrible right now). I have to walk about a block to the main campus for food, and then I can only eat from 7-8, 11-1, and 5-6, I think it's pathetic how restrictive the meal policy is. I mean if I don't eat breakfast- I'm still billed and I cant like get extra lunch. L J
I spent two years in the dorms and never had a terribly bad experience with it. Like someone else said, the worst thing I had to deal with was the occasional 3AM fire alarm. This year, though, I've got an apartment with a couple of friends and won't be going back. Having a living room, kitchen, and parking space is not to be underestimated. The only problem I have now is that my roommates complain that I never do dishes. They haven't yet caught on that I'm not the one who stacks them in the sink. As for the original problem, if the college can't seem to get the situation under control, and you don't want to move, you might want to introduce the college to some health and safety gentlemen. The threat of fines will change things in a hurry.
Colonel what school are you going to? Your meal plan is pretty rotten. At Indiana University we have "meal points" (just $) and we can use them anytime the food court is open (7-10) and then there are a few other places that server sandwiches until 12 so it works out pretty nicely.
I spent four years in dorms, and the first thing I would do is talk to the housing people. If they're pulling this kind of stuff, you may be eligible to transfer elsewhere for the rest of the year, and keep your private room (a lot of places have contracts that claim that conditions like this are a breach of their contract with you), so I would suggest going and discussing your options. Second, make sure your RA knows that you're innocent when people go down for this. They will, eventually, because they're being destructive, and that costs the school money. If you have to, clean stuff like that trash can just to make things a bit more livable, and they will notice. If nothing else, you've made your life a little better. Third, get pictures of these morons in action and pass them along to the higher-ups, and request they do something about it if nothing improves. NOBODY should A. Be allowed to act like this, and B. Have to live around stupid people like this. Exercise your rights as a tuition-paying student. If necessary, take those pictures to their coach. That gets a lot of things fixed REALLY quickly.
Yikes, my dorm experience pales compared to everyone elses. Sure, there was the 13 fire alarms I went through (the last one was particularily fun, as it was 3AM Monday morning of finals week) and the rooms were probably the smallest out of all of the dorms, but I got to blast my music loud enough (I 3> my Klipsch's) and I barely saw my roommate, so it didn't feel quite to crowded.
