It begins with one metallic little gum wrapper. The wrapper helicopters down from a hand and lands on the stairs. Shortly after, bits of popcorn kernels, half eaten pizza and crumbled papers are tossed to the floor.
Morning after morning, Custodians clean the dorms on the Gorham campus. This year residents in the largest dorm the Towers have noticed something peculiar.
“There were French fries sitting on the floor for at least 6 weeks,” said Kristen Eaton, a freshman, undeclared.
The custodians in the Towers are understaffed. The public areas are not getting completely cleaned.
In the beginning of the school year custodian Patricia Wright of the Tower’s crew had to take a leave of absence due to a medical reason.
This has led to frustration for the Tower custodians. The Dickey and Wood dorm normally has 4 custodians for approximately 400 residents. However for the past 3 years they have been struggling to keep a full time staff. Normally, 4 custodians would each have to clean 5 floors, the common areas as well as other designated duties.
Yet, since the Towers are short one custodian, there have been changes.
“We have allocated 3 and 1/2 custodians to the building,” said Carl Hill, Assistant Director of Facilities Management.
There are currently 3 full-time custodians and 1/2 refers to a floater, which will work with the Towers custodians, if needed, until Wright comes back from medical state leave.
Hill feels confident that the Towers custodian crew can do the work and doesn’t deem there is an issue.
“We are expecting Patricia to come back,” said Hill.
Yet, Residents and visitors only see the garbage clutter when walking through the stairwells of Dickey and Wood. They feel the untidiness seems to progress over the week, by the following Monday the Towers is an absolute mess.
“Students don’t respect anything, they throw stuff everywhere,” said Mike O’Donnell a sophomore Business administrative major. “Worse than any other place on campus.”
“It’s getting a little messy in here,” said Eugene Willette, a custodian in the Towers.
However, as hard as custodians work, it is difficult for three custodians who have their own duties to take over a fourth person’s duty.
“It looks like goats are living on the stairs,” said custodian Michael Buchand.
Since recent complaints to the University by parents of residents, the custodians main concern is to clean the bathrooms and stay as close to the Residents living areas as possible. Buchand and the other Tower custodians cannot physically get to every spot to clean.
“Most of the time my floor is clean, but the stair well could use a little work,” said Casey Pratt a freshman, undeclared.
Residents feel overall the bathrooms are as clean as public bathrooms can be. However, the public areas do not get fully cleaned.
“Last year they cleaned these floors everyday,” said John Youngblood a sophomore, history major.
The understaffed issue has been a recurring struggle between the Tower’s custodial workers and management. The custodians have more bathrooms to clean, which gives them little time for other areas.
The custodians are not neglecting their duties, they are merely trying to make do with what resources they are offered by the University, they say.
“If we had 4 people the stairs would be clean,” said Bunchand.
Staff writer Erin Zwirn can be contacted at: [email protected]
Why not require the students to clean up the place? A few weeks of that and they’d be a lot more careful!