Roommate with Alcohol in my Fridge

[EasterJoy]

There are very, very few campuses that would even utter the e-word for a first time offense of underage drinking. There are levels of discipline at every school but it’s financial suicide to chuck out a student who is caught one time. I’m not in any way lax about underage drinking and I never touched a drop myself until my 21st birthday, but I went to a Catholic college with a wet campus. Experimentation happens. Some kids learn with the first write up. Others don’t. Those are the ones who need to have the fear of expulsion put into them, especially if their drinking is not just underage, but also resulting in property damage or interpersonal trouble. But no one kicks out a 20 year old who is paying most of their tuition, as many Catholic university students have to… Let’s be real.

That’s for underage drinking, which is proven use. To expel all the roommates in a shared dorm room suite because one of them must have allowed someone in the room who then put beer in their refrigerator is beyond the pale.

This is not a situation where the OP is likely to be “framed” as a minor in possession, unless his/her campus is pretty much on a temperance witch hunt. That’s not impossible, but it is also not likely. I suggested she inform her RA just so she wouldn’t be the victim of a he-said-she-said later. When you have some serious tension going on in your room or suite, it is better to give your side to the RA and ask for advice before things really get out of hand.

 

[Cat]

For anyone outside of the USA, this discussion is **extremely ** difficult to understand. The very idea that a 19 or 20 year old adult can be expelled from college for simply having a bottle of beer in his or her room completely baffles me. I find it fascinating that such a strong Puritan strand has survived in even a rapidly secularizing America.

Sadly, almost every college campus in the U.S. has at least one alcohol-overdose death or drunken-driving death each school year, often more than one death per year.

For many American college students, drinking to excess and getting drunk is the norm every weekend, or every day if they can afford it.

Remember, this is the U.S. College kids don’t just have a drink of beer or wine at dinner. They drink 'til they puke, and they’re proud of their excessive drinking and drunkenness.

So our government tries to protect these young people by imposing age limits on alcohol consumption . But it doesn’t matter. Kids will drink anyway, and foolish adults will smile and say, 'It’s just a rite of passage. Everyone does it in college."

So my advice to the OP is MOVE to the freak dorm floor–um, I mean the non-drinking floor, but even on the non-drinking floor, people will drink because to a college student, “non-drinking” means, “I don’t get drunk every night, just on weekends.”

So OP, move to your own place as soon as possible, and interview potential roommates to make sure that they are on the same page as you in regards to drinking, and be prepared for them to probably lie about it. In the U.S., many people will say, “I don’t drink,” and what they mean is “I don’t get drunk.” So you’ll probably continue to find beer in your fridge. Welcome to college! Party on!

 

[z_0101]

Goodness gracious, what kind of school did you go to where the janitors were monitoring the trash cans and carding the students who threw away FULL and UNOPENED cans of beer?

Janitor opens the lid, tosses the trash as a normal activity, spots the booze or hears the bottle break. Next thing you know, time to do a prison check. This is in a lot of major universities in the US.

As for “Full” and “Un-Opened”, in the US, it doesn’t matter, if you are a minor in possession, and I’m not talking about taking the groceries in the house for Mom and Dad, the normal assumption is that if the container is in your hand, you are guilty.

As for protecting our youth… personally, in some areas, we go way too far.
Alcohol consumption is one of those areas (IMHO) there needs to be a happy middle somewhere so that we can teach our children how to drink responsibly and not go on these bing-drink-puke outings.

If you will note in my first post about the two students.
The one that was expelled was already on a probation status.
The second was placed on a probation status.
Both, by state and federal law, had to be refereed to the county attorney for possible prosecution for violating minor in possession laws. As the student tribunal we usually petitioned that our actions be considered sufficient and that charges be dropped (normally the student had to pay filing/court cost but that’s cheap compared to the fines and jail time) the CA usually took us up on the petition with the judge, who would usually sign-off… everyone’s happy.

 

[EasterJoy]

Janitor opens the lid, tosses the trash as a normal activity, spots the booze or hears the bottle break. Next thing you know, time to do a prison check. This is in a lot of major universities in the US…

A lot? Which ones? I have never heard of a dorm having a “prison check” over contraband found in public trash cans. I have never heard of a dorm being searched because of something the maintenance people turned up. I would assume there are probably Fourth Amendment issues with that. That’s not to say it never happens, but I’d not expect it is the norm.

Probably it is wise to ask about how a particular campus handles this…

 

[DarkLight]

A lot? Which ones? I have never heard of a dorm having a “prison check” over contraband found in public trash cans. I have never heard of a dorm being searched because of something the maintenance people turned up. I would assume there are probably Fourth Amendment issues with that. That’s not to say it never happens, but I’d not expect it is the norm.

Probably it is wise to ask about how a particular campus handles this…

Are you kidding? We had checks just randomly. The RA’s could go into your room because they thought they heard a boy/girl (as appropriate) after hours. And they went through every room over breaks. Might not be common, but I went to a relatively mainstream Christian school and that’s how it was. Perfectly legal too, you had to sign something agreeing to it to live on campus.

 

[EasterJoy]

Are you kidding? We had checks just randomly. The RA’s could go into your room because they thought they heard a boy/girl (as appropriate) after hours. And they went through every room over breaks. Might not be common, but I went to a relatively mainstream Christian school and that’s how it was. Perfectly legal too, you had to sign something agreeing to it to live on campus.

The administration having the right to stick their head into your room to check for people not authorized to be there is not the same as having the right to rifle through your belongings or go through your closed refrigerator. It does pay to know what is allowed in a particular jurisdiction. Dorm residents do have some 4th Amendment rights in every jurisdiction in the US, provided they do not give them up by consenting to what would otherwise be an unconstitutional search. (It makes sense that the rules will be somewhat different when the dorms are closed and you are not living there, compared to when you are living there, but just because administrators or landlords do something does not mean they must have the right to do it. They don’t always understand the law correctly, either, and sometimes when they do, they still take advantage of the knowledge that students rarely know they have any right to privacy.)

More to the point of this thread, finding alcohol in a public trash can does not automatically give the administration the right to go through all the private belongings in the dorm building. What evidence would they have that the booze had ever been in anyone’s room or was wanted in anyone’s room if it had? Finding alcohol in the refrigerator of a shared room and expelling the student who complained to an RA that roommates were putting stuff in there without her permission is not very likely. No university is in a big hurry to expel students, let alone to expel students unjustly.

Still, this is worth asking the administration. *"I found alcohol in my private refrigerator. I don’t definitely know who put it there, because I have more than one roommate and my roommates of course allow people to come and go. The alcohol is gone now and no one wants to admit knowing anything about it. I have no evidence it was ever there.

“What does the administration want me to do if I find alcohol in my private refrigerator or anywhere else in my dorm room in the future?”*

 

[Perian]

Are you kidding? We had checks just randomly. The RA’s could go into your room because they thought they heard a boy/girl (as appropriate) after hours. And they went through every room over breaks. Might not be common, but I went to a relatively mainstream Christian school and that’s how it was. Perfectly legal too, you had to sign something agreeing to it to live on campus.

This I very different from the absurd assertion that a full cell toss would happen because a janitor found an unused can of beer in a trash can in the vicinity of a dorm in which underage people are living. (Pfffft.)

What your describing is totally routine. The first is rule enforcement, the second is to make sure no one has left perishables in their room to attract vermin over Christmas break. All straightforward stuff.

 

[EasterJoy]

This I very different from the absurd assertion that a full cell toss would happen because a janitor found an unused can of beer in a trash can in the vicinity of a dorm in which underage people are living. (Pfffft.)

What your describing is totally routine. The first is rule enforcement, the second is to make sure no one has left perishables in their room to attract vermin over Christmas break. All straightforward stuff.

Having said that, if you allow your roommate to leave contraband in plain sight, especially while you leave for a break, you are asking to be penalized equally with your roommate. If you or your roommate push the rules, be kind and don’t leave evidence behind. The innocent party could end up going through a lot of hassle because of the guilty.

If your roommate is in the habit of serious rule violations, say something to the RA. Ask about how to handle it.

 

[Cat]

Janitor opens the lid, tosses the trash as a normal activity, spots the booze or hears the bottle break. Next thing you know, time to do a prison check. This is in a lot of major universities in the US.

As for “Full” and “Un-Opened”, in the US, it doesn’t matter, if you are a minor in possession, and I’m not talking about taking the groceries in the house for Mom and Dad, the normal assumption is that if the container is in your hand, you are guilty.

As for protecting our youth… personally, in some areas, we go way too far.
Alcohol consumption is one of those areas (IMHO) there needs to be a happy middle somewhere so that we can teach our children how to drink responsibly and not go on these bing-drink-puke outings.

If you will note in my first post about the two students.
The one that was expelled was already on a probation status.
The second was placed on a probation status.
Both, by state and federal law, had to be refereed to the county attorney for possible prosecution for violating minor in possession laws. As the student tribunal we usually petitioned that our actions be considered sufficient and that charges be dropped (normally the student had to pay filing/court cost but that’s cheap compared to the fines and jail time) the CA usually took us up on the petition with the judge, who would usually sign-off… everyone’s happy.

There are enough people who live in college dorms who are over age 21 that finding liquor containers in the general trash will not instigate a “prison check.”

 

[pensmama87]

There are enough people who live in college dorms who are over age 21 that finding liquor containers in the general trash will not instigate a “prison check.”

That is true, although I will say as a former RA (graduated from college six years ago) that if we saw primarily younger student areas with lots of empties in the recycling we would be a bit more thorough in our walkthroughs in those areas. We never searched rooms (we weren’t permitted to, but could only confiscate things in plain sight) but we might be more likely to knock if we heard loud talking or multiple people on a weekend night.

In two years of being an RA, I had three write-ups, and I was known as one of the “harsher” ones in my dorm rolleyes I actually got disciplined for one of the write-ups because I made students dump red solo cups without (apparently) having them explicitly admit that there was booze in them. I remember that they admitted it and wrote it on my form, then they disputed that in their discipline meeting and they were believed over me, so I was the one who got in trouble.

On most campuses, RAs are there to be a kind of first respondent in a genuine emergency, to help the school avoid liability in the case of really dumb student decisions, and to put on fun programming (and do fun bulletin boards, which I usually enjoyed.) I know at schools with stricter conduct policies it may be different, but in my experience most RAs are after the free single and good pay and NOT getting to go on power trips (though there are always a couple of those).

 

[Cat]

That is true, although I will say as a former RA (graduated from college six years ago) that if we saw primarily younger student areas with lots of empties in the recycling we would be a bit more thorough in our walkthroughs in those areas. We never searched rooms (we weren’t permitted to, but could only confiscate things in plain sight) but we might be more likely to knock if we heard loud talking or multiple people on a weekend night.

In two years of being an RA, I had three write-ups, and I was known as one of the “harsher” ones in my dorm rolleyes I actually got disciplined for one of the write-ups because I made students dump red solo cups without (apparently) having them explicitly admit that there was booze in them. I remember that they admitted it and wrote it on my form, then they disputed that in their discipline meeting and they were believed over me, so I was the one who got in trouble.

On most campuses, RAs are there to be a kind of first respondent in a genuine emergency, to help the school avoid liability in the case of really dumb student decisions, and to put on fun programming (and do fun bulletin boards, which I usually enjoyed.) I know at schools with stricter conduct policies it may be different, but in my experience most RAs are after the free single and good pay and NOT getting to go on power trips (though there are always a couple of those).

Things haven’t changed much in 40 years.

Believe me, OP, no one will take you seriously in college if you express any objection to alcohol in any form or setting. Give it up and move out as soon as you can. You won’t win this conflict, and you may end up getting bullied. Alcohol is supposed to make people mellow, but that’s just another lie of the grape.

 

[DarkLight]

There are enough people who live in college dorms who are over age 21 that finding liquor containers in the general trash will not instigate a “prison check.”

A lot of campuses have blanket no alcohol in the dorms though. Even the state school I went to for grad, you had to live in a special dorm if you wanted alcohol (which was actually kind of nice, admittedly).

On most campuses, RAs are there to be a kind of first respondent in a genuine emergency, to help the school avoid liability in the case of really dumb student decisions, and to put on fun programming (and do fun bulletin boards, which I usually enjoyed.) I know at schools with stricter conduct policies it may be different, but in my experience most RAs are after the free single and good pay and NOT getting to go on power trips (though there are always a couple of those).

This is also true. It also depends on who the janitors are. In my undergrad the janitor work was largely done by student in any case, and the vast majority of them would just shrug and make sure the cans weren’t on top.

 

[HouseArrest]

I’ve seen way too many pictures of underage students drinking in dorm rooms to believe the police are regularly involved or the students are being expelled.

I wouldn’t be confrontational with the roommate. I know you told him once and he didn’t listen, but I would approach him in a friendly way. I would say I recognize he is more willing to take a risk with the booze than you are, but could he please keep his alcohol somewhere else. It’s really making you nervous. You wouldn’t want to get an RA involved.

Do you otherwise get along with the roommates? As far as roommate problems go, this one should be able to be worked out amicably.

 

[EasterJoy]

I’ve seen way too many pictures of underage students drinking in dorm rooms to believe the police are regularly involved or the students are being expelled.

I wouldn’t be confrontational with the roommate. I know you told him once and he didn’t listen, but I would approach him in a friendly way. I would say I recognize he is more willing to take a risk with the booze than you are, but could he please keep his alcohol somewhere else. It’s really making you nervous. You wouldn’t want to get an RA involved.

Do you otherwise get along with the roommates? As far as roommate problems go, this one should be able to be worked out amicably.

I would not give roommates who lie to my face the kid glove treatment. This is the second offense on unwelcome alcohol in the refrigerator. It is a private refrigerator, not one the roommates pay for together. Trust abused twice: privilege withdrawn.

 

[Joie_de_Vivre]

Sadly, almost every college campus in the U.S. has at least one alcohol-overdose death or drunken-driving death each school year, often more than one death per year.

For many American college students, drinking to excess and getting drunk is the norm every weekend, or every day if they can afford it.

Remember, this is the U.S. College kids don’t just have a drink of beer or wine at dinner. They drink 'til they puke, and they’re proud of their excessive drinking and drunkenness.
**
So our government tries to protect these young people by imposing age limits on alcohol consumption . But it doesn’t matter. Kids will drink anyway, and foolish adults will smile and say, 'It’s just a rite of passage. Everyone does it in college."
**
So my advice to the OP is MOVE to the freak dorm floor–um, I mean the non-drinking floor, but even on the non-drinking floor, people will drink because to a college student, “non-drinking” means, “I don’t get drunk every night, just on weekends.”

So OP, move to your own place as soon as possible, and interview potential roommates to make sure that they are on the same page as you in regards to drinking, and be prepared for them to probably lie about it. In the U.S., many people will say, “I don’t drink,” and what they mean is “I don’t get drunk.” So you’ll probably continue to find beer in your fridge. Welcome to college! Party on!

The absurd college binge drinking is an effect of the raised purchasing age as it reduces the ability of mature adults to moderate drinking behavior.

 

[z_0101]

There are enough people who live in college dorms who are over age 21 that finding liquor containers in the general trash will not instigate a “prison check.”

Depends on the Dorm/University:

1. At the university I attended, among other criteria, at 21 the dorm requirement is waived; thus, the majority of residents at the halls were 20 or younger and mainly “freshmen.”
2. At the university I attended, possession of any non-prescription controlled compound (including alcohol) in the resident halls or at/on any of the university properties (yes that includes the Football Stadium) is a violation of my university’s regulations.
3. At the university I attended, Random checks often occurred, for no reason… that’s why it’s called a random check.
4. At the university I attended, Finding container in the trash would be enough to trigger an at cause check.

At the university I attended, Freshman students seem to come in mainly two flavors… the academic and the party-hardy. This appears to hold true across the board when a few of the major publications, and websites ( Top Party Schools 2014-15: Syracuse University Named No. 1 By Princeton Review ) rates university’s by their “party factor”

and we can’t seem to believe our little babies wanna-drink and not get caught…

 

[Cat]

The absurd college binge drinking is an effect of the raised purchasing age as it reduces the ability of mature adults to moderate drinking behavior.

In a college environment in the United States, there are no mature adults.

The dorm floors are supervised by Resident Assistants (RAs) who are college students themselves.

There is generally no mature adult on the premises in the dorms, except when the cafeteria staff are cooking. Many of the cafeteria staff are also students trying to earn some money.

The university staff includes plenty of mature adults, but these people conduct the business of the university from office buildings that are generally no where near the dormitories. They work 8 a.m. - 5:00 p.m., and then they drive home to houses that are no where near the university. They do not get involved with campus life or dormitory life.

The professors have nothing to do with the campus life. They are there to teach and inspire, but not to impart life skills to the students. Far from it–many of the professors seem to have no idea that many of the students do not have 18 hours a day to study, or that many students have to work at a job that takes time away from their studies, or that many students have families that take time away from their studies. The profs don’t really care what the excuse is–their students are expected to absorb massive amounts of information and regurgitate it back onto exams and term papers and projects.

Unless students live at home, parents have nothing to do with their campus life. They had 18 years to influence the students’ drinking choices. But all too often, their teaching goes down the toilet (literally) once the student gets to a college campus and FREEEEEEEDOMMM!!! Some of the most enthusiastic over-drinkers in college come from teetotaling families. But the vast majority of over-drinkers in college environments come from typical American families where drinking is done casually in controlled settings and no one gets drunk. When these well-trained kids get to college and FRREEEEEEEEDOMMMM, they lose their minds and drink like fish.

So parents’ training doesn’t really matter when it comes to substance abuse.

Many students live in off-campus housing (apartments, houses, private homes with basement apartments, etc.), and have no mature adults around other than their landlord (although sometimes, the landlord is a college student–I know several college students whose parents purchased an apartment complex for them, and the student was responsible for living in and renting out the other units–this is actually a pretty smart way to find housing in a large university town!).

The storekeepers who sell the liquor to the students are mature adults, but they don’t influence the drinking habits of young people. These storekeepers are under heavy pressure from the LAW to not sell to underage drinker, so they “card” people and say no to those who are too young to buy. I suppose that could be called “influencing behavior.” But all too often, the liquor for college drinking is purchased by those who are legally old enough to purchase and drink alcohol. So the storekeepers’ carding is a waste of time.

I am curious to understand who these “mature adults” are that you speak of, and how exactly they influence the drinking behavior of college students. Thank you for explaining this.

 

[HouseArrest]

I would not give roommates who lie to my face the kid glove treatment. This is the second offense on unwelcome alcohol in the refrigerator. It is a private refrigerator, not one the roommates pay for together. Trust abused twice: privilege withdrawn.

No he certainly does not deserve the patience, but it is November, and it is going to be a very long year for the OP if he gets into a contest of wills over the booze in the fridge, when most likely, nobody is ever going to know about it

If he is that worried, he could have the roommate sign a statement saying the booze is his and he will accept all consequences if it is found. He could have it notarized and be done with it.

 

[Joie_de_Vivre]

In a college environment in the United States, there are no mature adults.

The dorm floors are supervised by Resident Assistants (RAs) who are college students themselves.

There is generally no mature adult on the premises in the dorms, except when the cafeteria staff are cooking. Many of the cafeteria staff are also students trying to earn some money.

That’s exactly the point, instead of someone’s introduction to alcohol being at 18 around family where there is pressure to not get drunk, you have the introduction around young people who want to get plastered.

 

[EasterJoy]

No he certainly does not deserve the patience, but it is November, and it is going to be a very long year for the OP if he gets into a contest of wills over the booze in the fridge, when most likely, nobody is ever going to know about it

If he is that worried, he could have the roommate sign a statement saying the booze is his and he will accept all consequences if it is found. He could have it notarized and be done with it.

The OP says he plans to get rid of the roommates. This does not take an entire school year.

At least one of them lied to his face. He could say, “Bob, you lied to me. You looked me right in the eye, and you lied to my face. Bob, I don’t know how your parents feel about being lied to, but I do not cope with it. Only since I am not your father, I am not going to waste my breath on a lecture. You don’t get to put anything else in my refrigerator. Period. You other two need to tell me when you’re putting anything in there, because if I find something I didn’t authorize, I’m dumping it, no questions asked. Welcome to life with grown-ups. By the way, they sell coolers for $10 and ice at the mini-mart on the corner of campus. You can get your beer cold yourself.”

I do not know many men with roommates who don’t deal with them directly and bluntly. They do not mess around getting political with other guys who are acting like sleazeballs. No, they say, “You sleazeball! Cut it out! What, do you think I’m your little sister, I’m just going to put up with this? Loser!!” It seems to be what works.

Of course, you may be right. The OP ought to assess his own situation. It wouldn’t hurt to ask a few dorm friends about what they’d do–preferably others with the same “I’m not going to turn you in for drinking, but don’t do it where you’re going to get me in trouble with it” attitude. You are right, they’d have a better idea of what tactics are more or less likely to work with the parties in question.