Room Decoration
Because each resident’s room is his or her “home away from home,” the university permits and encourages students to create a comfortable and pleasant living space. When decorating rooms, residents are expected to observe the following precautions:
- Nails, screws, and plant hooks may not be put into the walls or ceilings. Posters and artwork may be hung on the wall with thumb tacks, staples, or preferably, non-marring adhesive. Students should refrain from using duct, transparent, double-sided, or packaging tape, etc., as they may damage the paint and leave adhesive residue, which will result in charges for repair to the damaged area. Scotch tape and rubber cement work well for affixing photos and small posters to walls and doors. Products such as 3M’s Command Adhesive hooks work well for mounting bulletin boards, banners, etc., and are non-marring and easily removable. To install posters, pictures, etc., removable adhesive putty is recommended.
- In the corridors and porch areas outside rental units, students are expected to keep their wipe-off boards and decorations on their doors. Banfield Hall residents are also provided a bulletin board outside their suite door to decorate. Apartment residents should not hang anything outside their apartment door with nails or screws.
- While students are permitted, and encouraged, to decorate their personal space in a way that is reflective of their personality, interests, and self-expression, decorations that may be offensive or obscene may not be displayed in an area that others can see without entering the personal living space of the roommate or neighbor. For instance, political or religious propaganda that may be offensive to others, as well as sexually explicit material or profane images, should be kept on walls or surfaces within bedrooms rather than being displayed on doors and walls that can be seen in the hallway or in the common living areas of the apartment or suite. Additionally, such materials should not be displayed in windows or on exterior doors or hallway bulletin boards that subject passersby to the images or material.
Students should be aware that offensive materials made visible to others may make for an uncomfortable or hostile living environment, and might even constitute harassment. Ultimately, the Residence Coordinators or the Residence Life Manager may remove such materials that are readily visible to others, or ask residents to do so.
- Residents are expected to keep decorations portraying drug and alcohol use or advertisements from being visible outside their rental unit. This means that beer and alcohol merchandising material, as well as posters depicting marijuana leaves, or any such related materials, should not be displayed in windows or on exterior doors or walls. Likewise, alcohol bottles are not to be used as decorations, displayed in window sills or atop refrigerators and shelves. Empty bottles should be recycled and removed from the apartment in a timely fashion after the alcohol has been consumed.
Residents under the age of 21 found to have alcohol bottles in their suites or apartments, even if the items are displayed only as decoration, will be disciplined for an alcohol offense, as possession of empty containers still violates the Alcohol Policy.
Room Modification
Residents may not structurally alter their rental units in any way. Cosmetic alterations should consist entirely of approved decorations as permitted in the preceding section of this handbook. Students may not paint the walls or cabinetry, hang wallpaper or decorative borders, or remove or change fixtures such as overhead lights or appliances. Students may not construct walls or partitions within the unit. Bolts and hooks may not be used to secure personal furnishings to walls, floors, or ceilings.
Furnishings
Furniture located in university housing units which is not permanently attached (bolted down or originally bolted down) may be moved within a student’s room or apartment as long as such movement does not result in trundling of beds (reversed) or in any way damages furniture by using it in fashions for which it is not intended. In cases of doubt, students should check with a Residence Coordinator or Residence Life Manager before using their furniture in any fashion for which it was not originally intended. In no case should furniture be removed from the building or room in which it was originally located except by the provisions provided for in this statement.
Students will be held fully accountable for the condition of their room and furnishings within their room during their period of occupancy. It will be the obligation of the student to make sure that the Room Condition Forms provided to them at the beginning of their residence in the room accurately assess the condition of their room and furnishings as of the time they took possession of their room. All furniture provided for the room must stay in the room. Any damage to a student’s room or the furnishings therein will be billed to the student according to the current rates established by the department in order that the university may repair or replace the student’s room and its furnishings to their original condition.
Residents may not request additional furniture or alternative furniture for their living unit unless the condition of their current furniture warrants replacement. For example, apartment residents will not be provided with bunk beds or loftable furniture from Banfield Hall. Residents will not be provided with additional desks, dressers, beds, or chairs. Any student may bring additional furniture into their living unit that they obtain and own personally, though all of this furniture must be removed when they terminate their occupancy. At no time should lounge furniture be taken into student residences.
Banfield Hall residents have the option to request lofting fixtures at the start of the semester to loft their beds, enabling more options in arranging their room furniture. Residents are limited to one bed board each, and they will not be given additional bed pieces to construct unnecessary fixtures in their rooms.
Storage
UAS Housing has very limited storage space in general. Apartment residents have only the storage room and closets included in their apartment in which to store personal belongings or furnishings provided with the apartment. At no time should university-owned furnishings be removed from the apartment or suite. There is no additional storage space for apartment furnishings. Banfield Hall has a very small space in the basement where a few items can be stored. The Banfield Residence Coordinator will use discretion in allowing residents to store their personal belongings in the building; no room furnishings may be stored.
Porches and Facility Exteriors
To maintain a neat and aesthetic appearance within the student housing complex and to prevent clutter from creating fire code violations, the university limits the amount and type of personal belongings that may be stored on porches or on the grounds. Porch items are limited to planting containers, BBQ grills, true outdoor seating, and seasonal decorations (including miniature light strands). Bicycles, children’s toys, garbage, furniture, tires and auto parts, and other such items may not be left on porches, alongside the buildings, in the parking lot, or on the grounds. Additionally, at no time should any of the university-owned interior furnishings, including chairs, be left on porches or on the grounds.
Political propaganda and messages that may be considered offensive should also not be displayed on the exterior of the buildings or on the grounds. Residents may not alter landscaping or create flowerbeds or gardens outside their apartments or elsewhere on the grounds.
