A warning would have been nice

Toccara Buckley

Upon entering my house, heading towards my room, I noticed that all of my housemates’ as well as my own belongings had been cleared from the hallway.

At first I was thinking, “Who in the world would want a bunch of dirty sneakers and cleats, a few smelly lacrosse bags, and a roll of artificial turf?” A few minutes passed and I recalled seeing a public safety jeep with a roll of turf on its roof only an hour or two before while running with the lacrosse team during practice.

As I was standing outside of my room gazing at the empty space in the hallway, my neighbor came over to explain to me what had occurred. While he explained what had happened, others that lived in the area that had belongings taken as well gathered to hear how they could go about obtaining their belongings.

Being that this “confiscation” occurred without warning, we were all very surprised. Understandably, some of out equipment that had been taken was in fact in the small hallway where one of the fire exit doors is, but would it have been too much as to get a warning letter prior to confiscating all of our belongings?

The officer that took the belongings told a resident that was present in the house that our RA had been informed and that all residence were given a deadline to have their things taken out of the hallway. If that were the case none of us would have left our things to be taken by public safety.

Later that night I spoke with my RA, he said that something was mentioned to him about the equipment. In no way were any of the residents of the house informed. So for the most part, all of this confusion could have easily been handled by a simple letter to each resident or maybe a posting in the hall instead of relying on word-of-mouth. But of course, instead of doing things the easy way, it grows into a huge ordeal with rumors flying around about fines and whatnot.

I guess all-in-all the reason why I am complaining about this situation is because of the way it was handled. In my mind, Public Safety does not have the right to confiscate my or anyone else’s belongings, nor do they have the right to look through those belongings that they have just unrightfully obtained.

Posted to the Web by: Toccara Buckley