College of General Studies sophomore Jeff Husain said he had no idea he would be billed last summer by Boston University for his roommate’s taste in interior decorating. His Rich Hall roommate replaced his own closet curtain with a flag and did not put the curtain up again when he moved out after first semester, Husain said. Neither Husain nor his new roommate hung the curtain when they moved out at the end of the year.
“That was his responsibility,” Husain said. “It’s not my side of the room.”
Both Husain and his new roommate were charged $25 later that summer for the curtain being out of place, he said. And Husain is not alone in being charged for misplaced items in their rooms after the semester’s end.
College of Communication junior Lesley Tanner said she and her roommate were charged more than $100 for a missing desk chair. Tanner said the chair may not have been in their room but was still within their suite at 1019 Commonwealth Ave.
“It wasn’t fair to charge us over $100 combined to move a five-pound chair less than three feet,” she said.
Tanner’s former roommate, College of Communication junior Dana Benjamin, said the chair was at her desk when she left for the summer, but she was still billed.
“BU has a pretty warped way of milking students for money,” Benjamin said. “There are many logical reasons for a chair being missing from my room that I moved out of one week and a half before the dormitories closed.”
All of the students said the Office of Housing eventually dropped the charges. Included with their bills was a form to dispute them, they said, and after sending in the form, they were contacted by housing representatives. Tanner said her missing chair charge had been removed when she checked her student account after talking to a representative.
“I disputed, complained and got my money back,” she said. “So the system worked for me.”
But Husain said he called the Office of Housing every Friday for more than two months to get the charge dropped for his roommate’s closet curtain.
“I wasted so much time on this,” he said. “BU housing was not helpful in the least – they only care about the money like a lot of BU services.”
According to the Residence License Agreement, when it cannot be determined which roommate’s furniture was missing or damaged, the charge will be split equally among all roommates. None of the students said they completed a room condition report form before moving out, so they did not have proof that their side of the room was left in its original condition.
Students are only required to fill out the form when moving in, Assistant Director of Residence Life Denise Burford said.
“The best defense for students is to make an appointment with their [resident assistant],” she said.
Burford said RAs can walk through a room with students and then sign the form to verify that everything was left in place. Because some RAs have more than 50 residents, making an appointment is the best way for students to be sure they follow move-out procedures, she said.
College of Communication sophomore Ali Gellatly said she was fined $80 for a closet curtain that was in place when she checked out of her Warren Towers room. Gellatly said the charge was dropped after a housing representative said the office found Gellaty’s checkout form, which verified that all furnishings were in place.
“They are willing to investigate,” she said. “It’s just when you don’t put the effort into finding out, they’re just going to charge you.”
Students said charges such as $80 for a missing closet curtain and $50 to hang a curtain are too high. But Burford said BU has good reason to charge those amounts.
“With 11,000 students [living] on campus, it’s a big amount of time and money to rearrange furniture to where it started from,” she said.
BU’s replacement charges are comparable to other area universities. According to the Boston College Residence Agreement, students are billed $50 if furniture is “not restored to original position.” Northeastern University students can be charged $75 for problems with a plastic chair and $200 for a fabric-covered chair, according to its residence agreement.
Like BU, BC does not require students to fill out a room condition form at the end of the year, a BC housing representative said. According to NU’s residence agreement, if students do not meet with RAs and complete a check-out procedure, they cannot appeal any damage charges. BU students can dispute charges even without filling out a check-out form.
Burford said it is especially important for students who leave dorms earlier than their roommates or suitemates to fill out a check-out form. She also said students who rearrange furniture within suites or apartments to create a common room need to be sure they put the furniture back in place.
Husain said that had he known he would be billed for his roommate taking down the curtain, he would have hung it himself. But he said students should not be apathetic about disputing charges.
“In the end, because I cared and persisted, it all worked out,” he said.
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