<p>Total mom question here: are there vacuum cleaners for student use? I am talking about all the little pieces of notebook paper, lint, chips bits on the floor of a certain apartment style dorm room in Morgan House.... Thank you!</p>
<p>My advice is to buy a reasonably decent but inexpensive stick vacuum and consider it “gone” by graduation. It is just another thing that other students will borrow, misuse or leave accidentally somewhere. I racked that up to “things you should go on and lend to anyone who asks” because some of your material belongings will take a beating in the dorms. If you are lucky, your son or daughter will have a place to leave it in the summers in a shared unit or some summer school or Nashville employed student will take it. Both stick vacuums we bought had to be replaced by the time first jobs and first apartments rolled round. The only explanation I got was “it quit working” or “a friend took it and ruined it”. By first apartment, your son or daughter has more control over how property is managed and likely to have fewer of their items ending up at someone else’s place. That and a package of those oil free “works on glass or wood or fake wood” dust wipes that pull out like tissues were enough for a cleaning every month or so. </p>
<p>I’m pretty sure there are a couple in every dorm. Ask the RA. I know they’re offered while moving out so they must be lying around somewhere.</p>
<p>Ha ha, my dorm resident has never met the RA – really! Sounds like you do not avail yourself of the vacuum cleaners either, Pancaked! :-)</p>
<p>Junior year, my D studied abroad for fall semester. As a result, she and her roommate (who also studied abroad in fall), moved into the dorm over Christmas break. The previous occupants of their room did not clean it when they moved out … and no Vandy staff cleaned it … so it was a disgusting mess when the girls moved in. I tried to get a vacuum cleaner from the very disinterested young lady working at the front desk of the dorm. No luck. Guess they don’t exist? We ended up going to WalMart and buying an inexpensive stick vacuum cleaner.</p>
<p>I think it is me who desperately wants to vacuum this apartment. It would drive me crazy! (It is driving me crazy and I don’t even live there.) But I don’t know how badly I want to go out of my way to get a vacuum cleaner unless a specific request for one is made. They might not even use it. And it would be one more thing to have to put in storage, which always seems like a bit of a disaster (things go wrong or are done under extreme time pressure.)</p>
<p>^^ That’s interesting, must be a little hitch in housing due to the mid-year transition. Usually Vandy cleans pretty extensively and sends out fines for students who leave their rooms unclean. That’s why vacuums are offered at the end of the year-- to help students avoid cleaning fees.</p>
<p>I thought I remember the cleaning crew vacuuming every once in awhile or on request. It would be easy enough to catch one of them and ask. I also feel like the RA and/or front desk worker had access to one.</p>
<p>Pancaked, it probably had to do with being a midyear switch. I did contact the housing director to let him know — I was really nice about it, and D & her roommate ended up getting the coveted off-campus housing approval for the next year. I don’t know if it was coincidence or not, but it definitely made up for the dirty room!</p>
<p>No, there are no community vacuums in the Commons. When we came for family weekend my D’s freshman year, she asked us to get her one. With two girls with long hair, there was hair all over the floor. After she got one, everyone borrowed it.</p>
<p>Whoa! There are stick vacuum cleaners in the $15-$30 range on Amazon. Just ordered. Thanks for the suggestion.</p>
<p>We bought our son a small handheld for Christmas his Freshman year. The rooms are just not that big so he didn’t want a stick one that would take up space. The handheld does a good job. Sometimes housing has vacuums but once they break students seem to be on their own.</p>