Danielle Azoulay
Staff Reporter
After a long day of fun filled activities and drinking at McDaniel’s annual Spring Fling, the residents of Garden Apartment 155 reported that the glass of the left front door of the building had been completely shattered at some point between the hours of 1-3 am on Sunday April 26th.
On Wednesday April 29, the building’s RA, Maria Clark sent residents an email asking for any information on the incident. The e-mail stated that it was both Clark’s and Area Coordinator of Garden Apartments and North Village Michelle Reihner’s decision that if no one was to come forward that all the residents of 155 would be charged for the repair.
After receiving the email from Clark senior Kim Pavlovsky, a resident of 155, said, “It was a major concern of mine that we were going to get fined… fined for the stupidity of other people.”
Because the incident occurred over the weekend repairs couldn’t be made until the following Monday.
“It also concerned me that the door wasn’t boarded, especially because of our location on PA Avenue.” Pavlovsky calls it a “sketchy area,” due to other incidents that have occurred their in the past.
According to Reihner, the Physical Plant informed her that in order for a board to have been effective, they would have needed to drill holes into the door. This would have caused the entire door to be replaced, rather than just the glass. Reihner says that the “(Physical Plant) went along with the thinking that every apartment door is locked, and every apartment bedroom inside that door can be locked… We have RAs who do rounds every night, and Campus Safety do their rounds too.”
However, not all residents consistently lock their doors, and the ability to lock a door was not of much help in past incidents, like the armed robbery that took place in Rouzer.
Further discussion with the physical plant and house keeping staff lead to the conclusion that the door was broken from the outside. This was deduced from the shattered glass covering the floor inside the entrance of 155, and parts of the stair wells. As a result it was impossible to determine if the incident was caused by a resident or non-resident of 155, and according to Reihner it would therefore be unfair for the residents to be fined. The school paid for the repairs, and will not be billing the residents.