The third floor of DeWaters residence hall is one of the least populated areas on campus – and for Kalamazoo College, that’s saying something. With only twenty residents, you’d think everyone would try to be mindful of their neighbors’ belongings.
That is, until third floor DeWaters residents started finding their food missing. On the morning of October 19, RA Darsalam messaged the third floor Teams chat, colloquially referred to as “3rd floor Dewaties Hotties” with some shocking news: that a resident’s chicken and turkey were taken from the community fridge.
“This kind of behavior is unacceptable and goes against the principles of respect and community living,” said Darsalam in the Teams message. “If you have any information about this let me know or if you are responsible or accidentally took it, I strongly urge you to return the food immediately to where it was taken.”
Later that day, third floor resident Anoushka replied, “Prolly the same mf who steals ice cream sandwiches”
“There have been similar incidents?😳” Darsalam responded.
“Well our ice cream didn’t crawl out the freezer itself”
“I spoke to my AC and there is nothing either us RA or he could do, but u guys r free to call campus safety and report whenever it happens so the culprit doesn’t think it’s okay to continue doing so without any consequences,” advised Darsalam.
All was quiet in the “3rd floor Dewaties Hotties” chat until Anoushka gave a chilling update the next night:
“Whoever stole our fucking salmon, I hope you get food poisoning and shit yourself. I come back from the hospital after days to my salmon being stolen.”
To get to the bottom of these incidents, I spoke with DeWaters RA Darsalam as well as Anoushka her suitemate Sam, who also had food stolen from the community fridge. As it turned out, the thief wasn’t the first problem the 3rd floor fridge has had this year.
“We got a new fridge second week,” said Anoushka. “The freezer was broken. After that it was very obvious what was being taken out and what wasn’t based on what was melted. I had four ice cream bars and only one was melted. The other was gone, one was melted. I think the melted ones were taken out.”
Darsalam mentioned that she had put an entire box of ice cream sandwiches in the freezer only to find them gone. “I assumed they were melted,” she said.
Soon, Sam found her Stacks ice cream sandwich missing.
“I put it in the freezer so I could eat it later, and it got stolen in like an hour. This was in the evening. Later when I was doing homework, I wanted my ice cream sandwich, and it was gone. I put a sign in the fridge that said, ‘Whoever stole my ice cream sandwich, put it back,’ and wrote at top of the sign, ‘Don’t steal shit.’”
A few weeks later, Anoushka’s whole Costco salmon was stolen. She and her suitemates were baffled.
“Who steals a whole-ass frozen raw fish?”
“I brought it up at an RA meeting, and they said they can’t do anything since it’s a community space,” added Darsalam. “But people kept telling me [their food is being stolen], and I said to report it to campus safety. There’s nothing else I can do.”
Since the ice cream sandwich incident, Sam has been putting sticky notes on her and her suitemates’ food.
“After I put up the sign that said, ‘don’t steal, or replace what you get,’ our stuff wasn’t missing until recently.”
After the October 20th salmon theft, nothing of Anoushka or Sam’s has been stolen – but they’re still wary of the communal fridge, and Sam continues to mark all her food with sticky notes.
They aren’t the only students who’ve begun to avoid the 3rd floor fridge. DeWaters resident Erendira, who contacted Darsalam about her missing chicken and turkey, expressed her disappointment in the “3rd floor Dewaties Hotties” chat: “ah hell nah i’m not trusting that fridge anymore”
On October 27 – the day after I interviewed the 3rd floor residents – Darsalam was the victim of yet another fridge theft. She wrote to the “3rd floor Dewaties Hotties” group chat: “Whoever stole my bag of curly fries from the freezer please return them”.
“It’s really sad, actually,” said Sam. “It’s a community fridge. Why are you stealing shit from a community? Whoever did steal it, we’re still waiting for the replacement of an ice cream sandwich and a salmon.”
Anoushka and her suitemates were planning on making a salmon sushi bake with enoki mushrooms and a soy glaze.
“You ruined salmon bake day,” said Anoushka. “I just want you to know. I worked a whole 2/3 of an hour for [the money to buy the salmon].”
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