By Ruth Ogechi Udeh
“Holy Lord!” I exclaimed as I walked into the 4th floor bathroom in Cilley Hall. “This is such a mess.” The bathroom was such an eyesore and my eyes just beheld the evil of the century. It started with splattered toothpaste all over the sink, to a tissue paper party and then having a mini red sea in the bathroom. This boorish behaviour was provocative to many.
The girls were so enraged by this disturbing situation. It led to an uproar. Maria Potamianaki took it upon herself to knock on every single door on the 4th floor and called for a floor meeting. At the meeting, you could hear angry voices suggesting solutions. Everyone was speaking at the same time. I watched with interest as Maria took over the situation by pouring out her heart and cleaning up the mess herself. Here is what Maria has to say:
“I wanted to take a bath and I saw the toilets. They were so gross. I opened the door to see if there was something I was hearing but nothing was inside there. I just saw that the toilet seat was full of blood and the floor was so messy. It was full of dirty papers and papers with blood in them. I started screaming. I was so pissed off because after sometime, I wanted to use the toilet, it was so gross that I couldn’t even go inside there. I decided to go to another floor.”
She continued: “This happened on Thursday I think. It was there for the whole weekend. The lady cleaning the dorm wasn’t supposed to come to our floor that day. Everyday, I was changing bathrooms. I was skipping from the first floor to the second floor and then to the third floor. I couldn’t get why this thing happened to us though. I believe that it is the only bathroom in the whole campus that was so messy. I don’t believe the boys’ bathrooms are so bad.” she added.
She finally concluded by saying: “I wouldn’t say anything to the culprit because I know that she would already be embarrassed and I wouldn’t like to make her feel uncomfortable. On Sunday night, I cleaned the toilet by myself because I couldn’t see the mess. I wanted to go to the toilet but it was so disgusting, and I was like I cannot switch floors anytime that I want to go to the toilet, so I just started cleaning it with paper towels.”
Another person who showed great concern was Elena Blanco. She profusely pleaded with the culprit to put an end to this unacceptable behaviour.
“Since the second day, I had been seeing the bathroom being a bit more dirty,” Elena said. “Every single day, the lid of the toilet was full of blood. The toilet, most of the times, was clogged. It was dirty. There were feminine products on the floor where the trash can is supposed to be because we don’t have trash cans inside the toilet. It is outside. It is just like it is thrown away by the side of the toilet assuming that a trash can was there. It was getting to the point where it was not sanitary anymore. The first time I saw it, I thought it was an accident. Accidents happen. I thought about all the possibilities. I tried to put myself in her position. We don’t want to be judgmental towards the person. We don’t want to bug up the person.” Elena said.
“The day that we called that meeting was very good,” she went on. “I am very relieved that we didn’t have to get a meeting with the whole floor and advisors or take it to another level. I am happy that we could solve this problem through communication and that no further measures needed to be taken. Thankfully everything is now better. We just wanted to have clean toilets and a sanitized environment and bathrooms. We already accomplished that and now we are all okay.”
Liyah Gokal rather took the judgmental approach unlike Maria and Elena. At the meeting, she sounded like she would tear the culprit apart when she was found. This is what she had to say concerning this disturbing situation: “The culprit did it because they are just lazy. They can’t be bothered to clean up after themselves. Ew! It was just gross. There was hair everywhere in the showers. There was tissue all over the floor. The floor was soaking wet. Toothpaste in the sink. I am just annoyed by the whole situation. I don’t get why people can’t be considerate about sharing a space.”
Liyah added even more angrily, “If the culprit is right in front of me, I would ask them why they are so lazy. What is your problem?”
Being a witness to such evil and hideous act, I implore everyone to be more conscious that they are sharing this space with others so they should be mindful as to how they use this space.
So far so good, the 4th floor bathroom looks spectacular. However, the perpetrator(s) of such fiendish acts are still unknown to the Cilley girls.