Health And Safety Inspections In Residence Halls

If you live in a residence hall on campus, you know that health and safety inspections happen twice a year (once each semester) to ensure that everything is kept safe and healthy! Our health and safety inspections in my residence hall, Mertz, were this past week, so in honor of passing, I thought I’d talk about what is allowed and what is not allowed in a residence hall room!

Health and safety inspections are done by the Resident Assistants (RA’s) of the residence halls, often your own floor’s RA with another from a different floor. On the selected day, the RA’s will come into the individual rooms of each resident to take a look around and make sure that everything is up to the health and safety regulations of the building. If everything looks good, they will simply pass you and you’re good to go!

Here are some things that are not allowed in a residence hall room:
• Too many plugs plugged into one power strip
• Space heaters
• Hot plates/griddles/any cooking appliances except a microwave basically
• Lava lamps
• More than 20% of the walls covered
• Nothing is to be hanging from the water pipes
• Alcohol or drug paraphernalia
• Candles
• Pets except non-dangerous fish

If you have none of these things, you should be able to pass these inspections with extreme ease. However, in addition to items not allowed in residence halls, the inspectors also look for things that could affect the health and safety of others regarding cleanliness. For example, overflowing trash bins, rugs and carpets that are not vacuumed, hard floors that are not mopped, piles of dust, old food in the fridge that has expired, and more things like that. If everything is clean and legal, then these inspections should be easy for you!

Ultimately, the health and safety inspections are nothing to be afraid of if you are living in a healthy and safe manner! If you make sure not to have items that are not allowed and keep your room clean, you will be fine!