An Open Letter to First-Year Girl’s Bathroom Users
Okay girls. It’s time we had a talk.
We all live in this dorm together.
I understand that some of us have never lived with other people, or been to summer camp, or had to clean up after ourselves. I understand that you may have lived your entire life with your parents taking care of you and you were only required to do the chores that were specifically asked of you. I get it, I lived like that for 18 years too.
But I’m sorry, none of those are excuses. You may have had your parents happily cleaning up after you in the past. But not anymore.
Welcome to the real world.
In the real world, we clean up after ourselves.
We don’t leave massive hair chunks on the walls and floor of the shower, expecting our parents to carefully pick the strands up for us.
We don’t leave food remnants in all the sinks, expecting our personal maid to follow behind us and scrub the residue clean.
We don’t leave the shower curtain outside of the shower and let water pool everywhere, expecting no one to lose their footing and slip in the pool of water stretching across the entire bathroom.
We don’t let period blood drip all over the toilet seat, expecting other people to place their butt on our piles of blood–we’re all about stopping the stigma, but touching other people’s bodily fluids is totally off the table.
We don’t play basketball every time we throw away a paper towel, expecting the janitor to collect all the paper towels that missed the hoop and are piled up in a 3 foot radius around the trashcan.
I don’t think I’m asking for much in these demands. I’m asking for you to be aware that you live on a floor with 30+ other people, at least half of which are using the same bathroom as you. I’m asking for you to understand that there is ONE janitor for every freshman dorm building on campus, and they can only do so much to clean up after all 100+ people in your building, especially if they act all like this. I’m asking you to be aware of the mess you leave, and at least attempt to clean it up.
It’s the middle of the second semester. You are well aware by this point that no one is going to clean up your mess, and we are all going to suffer because of it.
So, please, first-year girl’s bathroom users, CLEAN UP AFTER YOURSELVES!