<p>My sense is that the situation is quite a bit worse due to budget cuts affecting cleaning services. At some point this issue becomes a health issue, imo.</p>
<p>My daugher reports her dorm is âgreatâ, with regular cleaning, no mice or bugs.</p>
<p>"I know that there have been rats, mice and roaches in or near the river houses. My daughter doesnât look. "</p>
<p>During the summer, my d stayed at one of them and it definitely had all of the above. I didnât think her regular dorm (new Quincy) was that great but compared to the place she stayed in the summer, it is a palace.</p>
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<p>My daughter (now graduated) lived in Winthrop. Which meant that she had the honor that the mice in that infested her rooms were direct descendants of the mice that infested the rooms of John F. Kennedy.</p>
<p>Any Harvard hopeful moms/dads here?</p>
<p>I know that my daughter has mouse traps in her suite in her freshman dorm. I guess one of her roommates doesnât like the idea of mice. My daughter and another roommate went around and set them all off so that the mice wonât be hurt. :P</p>
<p>Thatâs just disgusting!!! who can the students call to complain. Thatâs got to be a health hazard.</p>
<p>My son - not what youâd call a clean freak - is accepting of the rodents although says they are more numerous and bold due to the fact that there is no garbage receptacle on the floor. The residents have to haul all garbage - bathroom and room - down the elevator or multiple flights of stairs outside and deposit it into a bin, that is often overflowing. Not sure if this is a new policy or if the current residents in his house are just lazy and not doing a good job getting their garbage disposed of in a responsible way. But that seems to be the issue driving the increase in rodents.</p>
<p>More concerning to me is that bathroom cleaning seems to be inconsistent this year. Some are just not being cleaned for several months now. The students are told that the dorm crew is coming through but the bathrooms remain uncleaned. </p>
<p>Iâd be okay if Harvard told them they need to live in a more co-op mode and handle their own cleaning. Then they could get it organized and probably do a fine job but the confusion and miscommunication is not good.</p>
<p>I do think the students are complaining.</p>
<p>^ at the beginning of the year, my daughters suiteâs bathroom (8 girls) was first cleaned after 4 (or maybe even 6) weeks. it was a VERY long time. D would not call and would not allow me to call. I posted something about the lack of bathroom cleaning on CC and if I recall correctly most comments were that the girls should clean it themselves. I actually would not have a problem with this it this were the policy told to the students. But the students know that dorm crew will be cleaning their bathroom so they wait,⊠and wait. </p>
<p>What I have wondered over this year is if dorm crew are claiming that they are cleaning, being paid for it yet not cleaning. D has a friend that was on the summer dorm crew. He would go to his assigned room/area that he was to clean and take a nap. He got paid for napping and not cleaning. There seemed to be nothing âwrongâ about this behavior. This has made me wonder if there is an attitude of getting paid and not working amongst dorm crew workers. Could this explain the dirty bathrooms? Maybe there should be some followup within dorm crew management to see if the bathrooms that have been paid to be cleaned were actually cleaned as claimed.</p>
<p>PS As a comment about trash. In Dâs dorm, trash must be brought to another dorm next door. There is no trash disposal at their dorm.</p>
<p>Oh my! I am afraid to ask my frosh about the condition of the dorm bathrooms. I know they have mice, but he seems to think that is ok. Hopefully any food they have is in sealed containers. I had also been troubled about the bathroom cleaning situation at the start of the year when I learned it would only be cleaned 1x a month. I agree that the kids must be told they are responsible for cleaning and then they would make some sort of schedule (and i would have bought bathroom cleaning equipment for them when I moved him in last August. So which are the worst river houses for rats? This week the freshman get the house assignments for next year and i would like the inside scoop. ;)</p>
<p>Wow, I agree that if the students knew they had to clean the bathrooms that they would come up with some kind of schedule to do so. But, if they âthinkâ the dorm crew is coming then they just wait and wait. </p>
<p>Sewhappy, I also wonder if the dorm crew is getting paid and not actually cleaning since there is no follow-up. </p>
<p>I may need to call âanonymouslyâ because this is not o.k.</p>
<p>Clarification on the rats: To the best of my knowledge they are not âinâ the houses. Eeeew.</p>
<p>There are large garbage dumpsters outside some of the house entryways. My husband and I noticed rat traps near them. </p>
<p>Mice - definitely. I donât think you can help that. My daughter had one in her freshman dorm; Iâm not sure if sheâs had any in her house.</p>
<p>Roaches: Fortunately, sheâs only seen one in her three years in her house. They definitely are worse in some houses. Again, it may depend on proximity to the house kitchen, though Iâm not sure about that.</p>
<p>Old buildings generally have some sort of vermin.</p>
<p>I will add that my daughter LOVES everything else about her river house and would not change it for the world. The Masters, the people, the atmosphere, the library, the dining hall, the location - you couldnât pay her to change it!</p>
<p>Itâs hard to get to upset with Harvard when I see every day at my company how difficult it is to cope with cutbacks. Who knows about dorm crew? The last two years my son has been at Harvard theyâve done a pretty good job. Maybe there are fewer of them hired this year and they have too many houses to clean. Itâs just hard to know whatâs going on. I would be fine if they shifted to a co-op model but that might be breaking with Ivy tradition.</p>
<p>At any rate, spring break soon and there was this hilarious video recently on housing day:</p>
<p>[Hitler</a> Gets His Housing Assignment | HUTV | Harvard Undergraduate Television](<a href=âHUTV | Harvard Undergraduate Television | Turn us onâ>HUTV | Harvard Undergraduate Television | Turn us on)</p>
<p>I have to say that I was walking past a dumpster in the entryway to DDâs house on Saturday and I heard a rattle and shuffling. I immediately thought the worst - a rat! It was, however, a BIG squirrel! DD remarked that the squirrels went into the dumpsters all the time. In any case, I did not see any mice, rats, or roaches when I was in DDâs House. I actually went on a full tour of the house (including the basement) and did not find it to be dirty. Then again, it was Junior Parents Weekend and an extra effort may have been made to ensure that everything was clean. DD and her roomies did say that the food prepared for lunch in her house on Saturday (Junior Parents were invited) was particularly good, including asparagus and artichoke hearts - which apparently are not part of the normal fare. </p>
<p>One more thing: I was pleasantly surprised at the large number of parents who attended Junior Parents Weekend. I was able to spend quality time with DD, meet some really nice parents, and to listen to an interesting lecture by Howard Gardner.</p>
<p>Sewhappy - D1 in Pforzheimer House wanted us to be sure we saw that video. As it makes clear - no mice in Pfoho!</p>
<p>MSMDAD: I would have loved the opportunity to hear Howard Gardner. How cool!</p>
<p>Did Peter Gomes speak at JrPW? He is usually excellent.</p>
<p>Yes, he opened his Friday class âHistory of Harvardâ to parents. Always entertaining.</p>
<p>I personally went to Financial Aid - who sent me to Billing for the 1098-T. They explained that no 1098-T was mailed if your child received more scholarship monies than tuitition paid as Heathly99 stated in #2173 above. But that means that your child owes income tax on the amount about tuition, i.e. room and board. So, while the 1098-T shows three semesters of scholarship, it only shows two semesters of tuitiion.</p>
<p>Finals schedule is out, and our kid has a final scheduled on the last day of finals â which conflicts with a family gathering. Has your child ever had the date of a final changed due to a conflict? Any suggestions on how to handle this â or if there is any chance of getting it changed?</p>