By Miju Kim
“Beepbeepbeep. Emergency. Emergency. Do not use elevators. Do not use elevators. Use stairs to evacuate. Beepbeepbeep. Emergency Emergency…”
The annoying fire alarm rang again, forcing my eyes open.
I was awfully exhausted to get myself out of bed but I could not take the piercing alarm sound anymore. It was about to drive me crazy.
Rubbing the cobwebs out of my eyes, I looked at a clock on the wall. God…it was 4:30 a.m. Must be some stupid moron smoking a cigarette or pot in the room that made the alarm go off.
BUT, rules are the rules. I had to follow the campus orders. What if it was a real fire? I got dressed and evacuate my room.
Going down from the thirteenth floor of the Christiana East Towers, I saw five shopping carts dumped in the stairwell. They all are from the supermarket, Superfresh. Many other residents and I had a hard time going down since they were blocking our way. Later, it turned out that it was not a real fire.
While waiting for the elevator next day, I saw students dumping shopping carts in the trashroom. Two girls acted so naturally that it seemed it wasn’t their first try at all.
A few days later, while walking to my room, I saw a dumped shopping cart in the hallway. My room is right next to the fire exit doors so it was usually targeted as a suitable spot to discard.
Jissell Martinez, Resident Assistant of the Christiana East Towers says she finds three to six carts every night on her duty.
According to her, RAs are responsible to report things that should not be in the building, like shopping carts, but they are not responsible to remove them.
“There’s usually a lot,” Martinez says. “I feel bad when I see them blocking the fire exit. That’s the place where people usually leave it. What if fire hazard happens?”
She had used shopping carts to move things before, but she never took it from the store.
“I just magically see them appear in the building,” Martinez says. “I don’t really see a solution because the fact that carts are very helpful when I have really large groceries. It’s very useful when you’re moving things in and out, too.”
With growing curiosity, I searched for the price of a shopping cart on eBay. I had to blink my eyes twice just make sure I was seeing the right numbers — $60!
Why are students doing this? Don’t they feel any responsibility to return properties back to the business owner? Hasn’t the Superfresh manager discussed this issue with the custodial manager of the Christiana Commons?
Dena R. Kniess, complex coordinator of Christiana Towers, sent an email on November 9 to the Towers residents showing concerns over the increase in deserted shopping carts in the dorm.
“There have been a lot of shopping carts in the hallways and in the trashrooms,” she wrote. “Most of the time, the shopping carts are found blocking the fire exit doors, which is a safety issue.”
Kniess ended the email with a warning that excessive housekeeping charges will result for the floors that this occurs on, if it continues.
That explains why I was charged $20 for facility housekeeping last semester!
The Manager of the Superfresh on New London Road declined to give any comments on this issue, saying he does not want his store in the paper.
“We take carts back to the store,” he said. “I don’t want to discuss this issue. It’s our business. OK?”
But how can his crews get shopping carts that are still in the Christiana Towers?
They cannot access unless they are Towers residents. They might get in through people entering the building with PDI, an access card offered to Tower residents, but that’s not enough.
Judith David, Custodial Manager of Facilities-Custodial & Pest Control, on an email response, confirmed they do remove shopping carts.
“When we find shopping carts in the Towers, we remove them and place them behind the Christiana Commons so that the stores may retrieve them at their leisure,” David says.
She declined to answer another question whether she has heard concerns of stopping students taking carts from the Superfresh.
Junior Eunhye Choi, who was once a Christiana East Towers resident and now lives in an apartment near the Superfresh, says she notices a sharp decrease in the number of shopping carts these days.
“I understand it is heavy to carry groceries without a cart,” Choi says. “But when you get into the entrance door of the Superfresh, you can clearly see ‘Do not take carts out of parking lot’ sign on the door.”
Will the students change the behavior?
Keiko Kuwabara, a junior living in the Christiana East Towers, says she has a shopping cart in her room. She says it was literally “there” when she moved from the West Tower.
“I’m positive that a lot of students living in the Towers have shopping carts in their room,” she says. It already includes four for her floormates, of course, not including hers, Kuwabara says.
“The first time I was afraid that I might get caught,” she says. “But I realized I couldn’t carry six bags of groceries of my own. It’s too heavy for me. What else I can do?”
