Does your child's school assess a "community housing damage" fee?

Parents Forum
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<p>I started a thread similar to this thread in my s's college forum, to see if this was unusual, and am finding that students were apparently routinely getting assessed "damage" fees every year. We were told at the beginning of the year that if, IF there was damage done to the dorm, it was typically difficult to identify the culprit, so they just spread the cost to all the residents in the form of a small fee since they most often do not know who caused the damage or whose barf they are cleaning up (sorry to be blunt). I wondered if this was just true at DS's school, or if others had a similar experience. Do you get his with a "universal housing damage" fee?</p>

<p>Ok-- so I get an email from the school's accounts receivable office today with a bill. First I figure its for something DS perhaps charged at the college store. Nope, he's pretty good about paying for his own stuff with the monthly allowance we give him (and he has saved most of that allowance money, I am proud to say). Anyway, I digress. We got a relatively small bill in the Fall for some damage that my s told us about (he had no part in it and it was on another floor entirely, but he was aware of some incident and warned us that we'd probably ge a small bill). So I paid that bill last semester. It was maybe $20. I forget.</p>

<p>So I get a bill today for $42.41 Granted, this is not a lot of money, but the dorm has about 438 kids in it, and my s said that his floor had the lowest assessed "housing community damage" fees of all the 12 floors. Gee, makes a mother proud. But I digress again. </p>

<p>What the heck could these kids really have done to warrant an almost $20K "community damage" fee?? Seems like a bit of a racket to me. Its not like we get to see a list of damages and assessed repair or clean-up fees. I understand that the cleaning crew does not want to have to clean up excessive... er... residual... regurgitated food and drink , shall we say, from a night out or something, but geez, $20K in "damages? This seems like an egregiously high cleaning and maintenance fee. Maybe they should call a few of their school scholarships the "Housing Community Damage ripoff fee scholarship", LOL </p>

<p>I think the base college fees should include reasonable dorm repair costs. We never had to pay any such bill at older s's college, and his floormates broke the lighted hall "exit" sign that was suspended from the ceiling the first week they were at school!</p>

<p>Do other schools do this? I can see if some serious damage was caused, but according to ds, it was typical stuff-- maybe something (furniture, microwave, whaterver) broke in the community lounges or someone left the hall bathroom in grody (sp?) condition. I have not heard of this being done, except in unusual circumstances, at other schools. At his school, it seems like just a way to collect more $$, as apparently students seem to get hit with this every year. Anyone??</p>

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<p>My d at UNiversity of South Carolina got one of these freshman year. I think it was for $6 if I remember correctly. I vaguely remember something about the fire extinguisher needing to be replaced on her floor. Since it was such a small amount I just shrugged it off. She’s been off campus ever since so I don’t know how common it is.</p>

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<p>never heard of anything like it.</p>

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<p>Six bucks is fine. But we are looking at about $60-65 over the 2 semesters, and he didnt do a bit of it. Kind of annoying… especially if it will happen every year.</p>

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<p>At S’s college, any community damage costs are taken from their $200 room damage deposit that is held until the student moves out of college housing. Last year II think they took about $2.12 for some bathroom damage on one of the other floors.</p>

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<p>My son’s was $40 something after his freshman year. I, too, thougt is was alittle heavy handed for a dorm that held over hundreds of kids especially when I found out that “everyone” gets charged “something.” That is a nice little chunk of change. My son’s charge was “because they did not clean the bathroom in the suite well enough before they moved out.”</p>

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<p>My dorm was never hit with it in undergrad, though we were threatened a few times. My sophomore year I was stuck with a few friends on the top floor of a freshman only dorm (well, the first three floors were only freshmen, top floor was sophomores). The lower floors kept on destroying stuff around the dorm and the RAs were threatening to charge everyone for the damages caused. This included the cost of calling the fire department one time when they were being cited for underaged drinking, one snuck off, pulled the fire alarm, and everyone bolted from security. Needless to say, those of us on the top floor felt it was a bit unfair, so my friends and I that lived on the floor wrote rather angry letters to the RAs/housing office saying how ridiculous it is we’re being charged for damages we could have in no way caused. It worked for them hassling us, but no clue if they wound up charging the freshmen on the lower floors.</p>

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<p>Hadn’t really thought about this one. We have on occasion gotten small charges for dorm damages. Once it was a torn window screen that my son said was already in bad shape. There also was one to repair the keycard lock at the dorm entrance. That one was charged to everyone in the dorm. I paid it without thinking. I guess in that case they did not know who to charge so the entire dorm was hit up for a small amount. We were also charged for a lost mailbox key.</p>

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<p>After freshman year, my son had a $90 fee assessed. He did admit that there was obvious damage to the dorm common areas, and even described the activities that caused it. We left it to him to pay (required it) and he did, before the next fall semester tuition payments came due. I’m guessing that this is not unusual.</p>

<p>So, he moves into off-campus housing for sophomore year (rents a house with two roommates). Now, at the end of the school year, he is scrambling to replace door knobs (and likely other things) that have been damaged this year. It’s the same…they use, they abuse – they pay.</p>

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<p>This happened in my daughter’s freshmen dorm last year, although I don’t remember the amount (and it’s possible she paid it without our seeing it). There was a lot of damage caused by some rowdy, partying types in her dorm. I think they destroyed the “EXIT” signs every weekend. </p>

<p>I could imagine that if lounge furniture and carpeting were destroyed, that could come to a pretty penny. My sense of the college where my kid is (where I went too) is that the furniture has been there forever.</p>

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<p>I think this happened to us once. A very small amount.</p>

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<p>jym, my S got hit with a $40 fee last semester for some damage done on his floor. He wasn’t at fault (he says that he wasn’t even on campus when it occurred - he had already left for break) but they assessed everyone in the residential college. I made him pay it.</p>

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<p>Hasn’t happened to us. We definitely did know if something happened in DS’s room and they couldn’t identify which roomie did it they would all pay equally but we never had the circumstance come up.</p>

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<p>My neighbor told me about recieving a damage bill from her S’s public university. The bill listed 20-30 charges of less than $2.00 each with the description of “vomit cleanup”. :eek: Apparently they charged all the kids on the floor for the extra cleanup the communal bathroom needed after each weekend. Her S claims none of the vomit was his, she asked.;)</p>

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<p>They did this at my school too usually only in the freshman dorms, as the upperclassmen behave better. I also know that if the fire alarm gets tripped too many times, the city can fine the school and the housing department will pass that along to the residents of the dorm.</p>

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<p>It’s very common. After having to pay a couple of (usually small) community fees, the residents generally take matters into their own hands and police their own, which is the best approach for all involved. When you think about it, we all pay “community fees” in the real world, too. If people steal enough road signs in our town, the millage rate will be adjusted up next year to give the City Marshal the necessary funds to replace them - same thing.</p>

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<p>^^ I understand paying a “reasonable” amount, but if every kid is being hit up for at least $60 or so, regardless of whether they caused an iota of damage, and there are, say, 5000 students living on campus (thats a pure guess), those dorms should look like palaces, not dumps. As fireandrain said, the furniture looks like its been there forever.</p>

<p>Patsmom-
I dont recall ever paying a penny in damage fees in DS#1’s 4 years ain the residential college. What did you get stuck paying for??</p>

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<p>I guess they really don’t know how to party at Carnegie Mellon! They had a long list of things we could be charged for, but we weren’t. He didn’t have communal bathrooms.</p>

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<p>They did this at S1’s college too. Again, during freshman year. Many times it was to clean up the “barf” or other messes the cleaning people found. We were also charged for a soda machine being vandalized, a very heavy glass door being broken, fire extinguishers damaged/discharged. It got to be very annoying especially when its not your kid doing the damage but ultimately having to pay for it.</p>

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<p>Neither of my kids have ever had any of these charges from their schools.</p>