UNWANTED NIGHT GUESTS
Unwanted Night Guests
If you have been checking your Facebook feed from time to time, you might have noticed an unusually large number of posts unrelated to parties and forgotten phones in Fest-telegrafen. Many dorms have been receiving visits from unwanted guests that result in stolen property. Tuntreet talked to some of the victims to figure out what is going on in Pentagon.
Journalist: Elina Turbina
Photographer: Åsne Sørlie-Nordnes
Photographer: Åsne Sørlie-Nordnes
Photographer: Åsne Sørlie-Nordnes
The ABC of coconut theft
We're invited to visit one of the housings in ABC, where Marius, a first-year Urban Agriculture student, has been living for the past couple of months. After moving into his new dorm, he decided to decorate the common area with plants, so he bought a monstera and a coconut plant because "coconuts are good vibes". The night these plants found their new spot by the big window in front of the balcony, Marius went to sleep early. When he woke up the next morning, he was surprised to find out that the door to the balcony was open, and the coconut plant was nowhere to be found. "It was not more than 12 hours since I got the plant," noted Marius, "[losing a newly purchased plant] was an emotional rollercoaster."
After checking other dorms in hopes of finding the coconut plant, Marius decided to write in Fest-telegrafen and, to his surprise, the next morning the plant was waiting for him at the porch. Now the collective always locks their doors. "We had been concerned that some of us were using the balcony door as the entrance at the beginning of the semester, and one of the roommates said we should wait until somebody steals something to establish rules about closing the doors. Three days later the plant was gone". In this uncomfortable situation, Marius got support and sympathy from fellow students and even his professor, who proposed a GoFundMe to get a new coconut plant. After this experience, Marius seems to still hold a belief in humankind but acknowledges that it is sad that his collective must now be afraid of another visit.
Photographer: Åsne Sørlie-Nordnes
The thief left the lasagna form outside Eivind’s dorm. Photographer: Åsne Sørlie-Nordnes
Shamelessly hungry
In Mølla, Eivind found himself in a similar situation. His story begun one Wednesday night, when he made two sizeable vegetable lasagnas, freezing one of them for later and leaving another one in the fridge. Despite usually locking the doors in the evening, this time the collective forgot to do so. The next morning, while preparing breakfast, Eivind found out that the lasagna was gone from the fridge. “At first, I thought to myself - What? Didn’t I remember to put it here yesterday evening? But I could clearly remember making space in my shelves to fit the whole lasagna form.”
After realizing that the meal was stolen, Eivind wrote posts in Første mann til Mølla and Fest-telegrafen to ask for the guilty person to come clean and bring the form back. The empty lasagna form was left for Eivind to find in a chair in the hallway outside his dorm some days later, yet no person came forward to take responsibility for their wrongdoing. "I am glad to get my form back [and] I will be completely fine without my lasagna, but in principle, I am irritated by the rudeness shown, and then later by the lack of will to take responsibility for their actions", stated Eivind.
The comment from SiÅs
“This is a concern we are aware of, and we agree with you that this is absolutely not okay. It is important for us that students feel safe in their accommodations and that they should be able to safely store their belongings. All SiÅS housing should be able to remain locked for those with no reason to be inside, both through the main entrance and through each individual resident’s room. In the majority of the accommodations, the stairwells are also guarded with locks.
(…) Students should talk with their housemates to decide on rules and procedures for when the doors should remain locked and how to avoid them remaining unlocked.
If a break-in does happen, we encourage the victim to report it to the police. In situations like these, SiÅs will give the police access to any relevant information they have. For the student, we have people they can talk to at the student life coordinators or the health centre as experiencing such an uncomfortable and intrusive situation may leave them in need of processing what happened.
To conclude, I would like to mention that if there should be any faults with the door locks, we strongly encourage our residents to report this to us immediately. This will be highly prioritised by our operating staff, as this could affect the students’ safety, and that is something we take seriously.”
New Rules
The dorms of Marius and Eivind are now locking their doors every evening, thanks to these instances and the overall increase in theft in the student housing. There is a shared sense of discomfort knowing that Pentagon is no longer as secure as it used to be. And even though these were somewhat lucky cases, we should not take for granted the kind of habitat we're falling into. Here are some words of wisdom: if you want to do something stupid, don’t. If you're doing dumb things while drunk, be brave enough to take responsibility for your actions in the morning. If you think it is acceptable to steal from a fellow student – think about the kind of student environment you're contributing to. And if you are leaving to a party – make sure you lock the doors and place the keys somewhere you can access even when you’re drunk.
