Dorm Crew Braves the Wilds of Vacated Rooms

Who knows what evil lurks in the heart of dorm rooms?

Every May and June, 400 intrepid Dorm Crew workers venture into student rooms to prepare them for summer occupation, for a week before Commencement and two weeks after--armed with only mops, brooms and their own survival instincts.

"You'd be surprised how bad things can be," says Donald J. Rissmiller '98, a Dorm Crew captain and four-year veteran of summer clean-up. "People are slobs--college students in particular."

Dorm Crew workers are the first to encounter vacated rooms, which are often not completely empty.

"A bucket of urine was found once," says Daniel O. Medina '99, a Dorm Crew Captain.

"People leave things as a joke," he says. "I can't imagine any other reason why somebody would fill a bucket like that."

And the stories get stranger. Medina says he has "heard tell of handcuffs on beds," adding that other suspicious recreational objects have been found in student rooms after move-out. But the harvest is not always negative.

"We get stuff like cases of beer that say 'Thank you Dorm Crew,'" Medina says.

The reward can even be monetary.

"You can get $50, $60 in change, $100 if it's a big house," Ron C. Rosenman '98 says. "We pool it all together [during clean-up] and buy pizza.

Workers often encounter abandoned furniture, which then has to be removed from rooms piece by piece.

"People don't want to ship their couch or their refrigerator home, so they leave it there," Rissmiller says.

Rosenman remembers an especially challenging hallway.

"At the end of the year in Mather once, there was a hallway upstairs that was entirely full of furniture," he says. "You had to climb over it to get around."

After trash is removed, workers perform a detailed cleaning process that includes dusting. "damp dusting," sweeping, wall washing, polishing, mopping and floor finishing.

If rooms are particularly dirty, the work grows even more demanding.

"If people leave wads of gum on the floor, you have to scrape it off," Rosenman says. "I did a room once that had 50 pieces of gum."

So what makes students sign up freely for such perilous duty?

"You get to the end of the week and you're done--there's a definite sense of completion, especially when you've been there two weeks," Rissmiller says.

Dorm Crew workers also get the chance to meet one another in a more relaxed setting where t-shirts and shorts are de rigeur.

"Harvard people are really intense, so it's nice when people aren't so stressed out," Rosenman said. "Plus, the weather is really nice that time of year, so it's cool to be outside."

And if that's not enough, there is the money. Workers are paid $8.85 an hour, and during clean-up period many students work eight to 12 hours.

But Medina insists money isn't the only reason he stays.

"It's more of a team effort," he says, "I was proud of what I did."