By Antek Bańkowski
Despite months of ongoing negotiations between Residents’ Committee (RC) and DUWO, universal access to all strings remains a thing of the past. Tackling the issue of hallway trashing is currently a priority for tenants’ representatives, as DUWO has highlighted it as the primary reason for locking residents out of each other’s strings. “If people want to go back to the [previous] key system, we need to tackle the problem that people do not clean after themselves,” says Māra Učelniece, an RC board member. As the committee is yet to implement a working solution to the disorderly hallways, it seems the tenants will have to accept the locked strings for the foreseeable future.
In April, tenants reacted with bitter backlash to DUWO’s announcement of a new key system at the dorms, prompting the AUCSA and the Student Council to implement an already existing plan for the creation of the Residents’ Committee. It was established to represent tenants in various matters, independently of other student bodies. As DUWO decided to lock residents out of each other’s strings, RC made it their priority to “start a conversation with DUWO about the new key system”, by exercising their right to meetings with DUWO representatives, according to their Instagram post. Since their late-May announcement of their first meeting with DUWO, they have not posted any further updates on the negotiations. The committee held its first information session on November 19th.
The RC currently considers keeping all hallways clear to be a necessary step in achieving any changes to the key system. “It’s actually a fire hazard,” says Učelniece, explaining that if a fire broke out in the dorms, DUWO could be held accountable for allowing tenants to keep their belongings outside of their rooms. She also says that one of the triggers for limiting access to strings was numerous complaints Daniella, DUWO’s social caretaker at the dorms, had received from Thomas, the janitor, about the difficulty of maintaining cleanliness in the hallways due to items left behind.
In Učelniece’s opinion, tenants should not expect DUWO to reverse the changes if they continue to leave things in the hallways. “For the tenants to want them to change the keys is kind of being like: oh, you see we trashed your whole building, and now we want you to do something for us, even though we’re not cooperating,” she says, also stating that RC plans to change tenants’ perspectives on the matter. She admits that DUWO did not provide any guarantees to make strings universally accessible again, even if the hallways were cleared of all objects. RC hopes that DUWO will be more willing to negotiate once the hallway issue is resolved, “but that’s also unknown, and the trash is something we need to deal with anyhow,” Učelniece says.
RC is considering various approaches to maintain the hallways of the dorms, although no measures have been taken yet. According to Učelniece, they plan on making students aware of how important it is to keep hallways free of any objects. RC is also considering involving string representatives. Another idea of the committee is an all-year-round free store, although they “don’t know if it’s fully possible,” says Učelniece. This would be a space where residents could leave their unwanted furniture for someone else to take, with RC managing the process to ensure “it doesn’t become a dumping ground,” says Jared Carter, another board member of the committee. Učelniece says they have discussed the idea with DUWO representatives, who, according to her, acknowledge that free pop-up stores are “something that works.” She emphasizes that RC is aware of the dorms’ recycling culture, in which tenants are used to leaving items in the hallways hoping another resident will reuse them. The committee plans to “keep the upcycling that we have in the dorms, because it’s beautiful, but we want to have it in a way that it doesn’t cause fire hazards,” she says.
When the negotiations started in May, the RC was pleased to find out DUWO representatives were very willing to enter discussions. According to DUWO’s website, the company only requires its spokespeople to see the Residents’ Committee three times a year, but they agreed to have more meetings, with several of them taking place over the past months, according to Učelniece. She says that apart from RC, the meetings were attended by representatives of DUWO, AUCSA and AUCSC, as well as Student Life Officers, AUC’s Housing coordinator, Naomi Turnier and AUC’s Head of the Services and Communications Department, Marcus Smit. Učelniece admits that the number of entities involved slowed down the progress of negotiations. “For all of us to communicate and agree upon one thing is a time-consuming effort,” she says. The minutes of these meetings have not been made public.
The Student Council has also been involved in negotiations with DUWO, but is making sure that RC is “fully functioning as an organisation independent from AUC, AUCSA, AUCSC, and any other AUC-affiliated organisations,” says Thomas Jurgens, a council member. He expresses no dissatisfaction with RC’s handling of the key system negotiations and cites the number of stakeholders involved as well as “some emotion from several sides” as factors, which “necessitate a longer timeline for these negotiations.”
DUWO did not respond to a request for comment. The SLO’s declined the request for comment. Naomi Turnier, the AUC Housing Coordinator did not respond to a request for comment.
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