Fairfield always seems to have little surprises waiting for me in my mailbox over the summer. This year I was socked with a $65 “room damage” fine. When I spoke to several friends of mine the bills were almost as high as mine.
The bill itself comes as a nice tidy figure with zero explanation. If you want an itemized bill you need to email the housing department. So, having a little time on my lunch break at work I telephoned housing only to get the run-around by a representative there.
When I asked why the costs were so high they responded that they had nothing to do with it, but rather that Pritchard, the campus cleaning company, sets the rates and they just go along with it. Gary Stevenson, the head of housing, was on a two week vacation and therefore unavailable. So, while I waited for him I asked that an itemized bill be sent.
When the bill arrived it turned out I was charged $25 for a “dirty” microfridge exterior, $25 for a “dirty” microfridge interior and another $15 for an “extremely dirty floor.” I plead not guilty on all counts. (As for the floor, I would like to thank the extremely diligent RA for noticing and helping correct this terrible and potentially dangerous situation.)
The first thing about these charges is that they are completely out of the range one would expect. Salaries for janitorial personal are pegged at hourly rates far lower than the scant amount of time it must have taken them to clean the exterior of a microfridge.
If the school indeed makes no profit off cleaning fees, as they stated to me, than it would certainly be in their best interest to negotiate a better contract for their true customers-the students.
All of this is troubling enough, without taking into account what happened to a friend of mine when she moved in.
I was a witness first-hand to the wretched state her dorm room was in. Her parents and she had to clean the place from top-to-bottom after having spent over three hours driving to Fairfield.
There was a drippy substance on one of the walls and there was a dead bug on the floor. Obviously, whatever cleaning is done at year’s end didn’t quite make it to her room. And to add insult to injury, she was socked with a hefty cleaning bill last year too. Frankly, she is the most fastidious person I know.
Fairfield University is just about the worst landlord I can imagine. Hitting students and parents with high cleaning bills is a real travesty. Many are on very fixed incomes and thus cannot really afford the extra cost of having to have their microfridge scrubbed by professionals because their meager attempt wasn’t enough.
Students deserve more honesty from the University. The university should mail damage bills with details included. Make officials available when they will be needed most. Most of all, don’t enter into contracts that embitter students and provide absolutely no value to you.
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