House of former RAs build too much community

Grace Jackson, News Editor

When 6 former Residents Assistants (RAs) moved into 6969 Valencia St—or the Hague—they were all excited to get away from the first-years.

“We’d all been working so hard on programs that no one came to so we were really excited to run the house like we weren’t able to run our sections,” Senior Andrea Builder said.

Sociology major Amanda Pegg said that they would sing songs and take turns coming up with house “programs” every night. According to Pegg, the programs often consisted of board games and movie nights.

“I felt like a lot of it was really lazy programming but that the house would consider it rude if I didn’t come. The real problems arose when I started having a study group on Eileen [Dover]’s night,” Pegg said.

Dover said she felt really hurt when Pegg missed her evenings, and sent numerous “I feel-” statements to the house groupme with no response.

Art major Mike Hunt claimed there were issues from the very beginning.

“When we all moved in, everyone had made door decks. My door was so cluttered I could barely get it shut but I knew if I took one down someone would be upset. It takes a lot of emotional and artistic labor to make a door deck, trust me I know,” Hunt said.

Housemates Phil McCracken and Maddie Smith said that they only became RAs for the free room and board and were initially overwhelmed by their housemates’ continued adherence to ResLife rules.

“I turned 21 before anyone else and got a job at a winery. Anytime I brought wine home, Eileen and Amanda would say I couldn’t have it in common areas and try to take it. It got pretty tense a few times and we had to rework our house guidelines. I was like ‘no wonder your residents called you guys narcs,’” Smith said.

The house community guidelines is currently a 30 page document organized somewhat like the UN charter, hence the house’s name. Smith added that it is adjusted every few days. She said that all of the rules often make it hard to foster connections, but that she appreciates how clean the kitchen is.