Posted by Julia Leef
This article was written for April Fools and the events described in it did not actually take place
In a shocking show of activism, students this week broke into a Sussman apartment to physically disconnect and remove the kitchen stove and microwave of the four residents who, earlier that week, had accidentally set off the fire alarm five times at various points in the day.
Campus Safety received the first alarm at 12:31 a.m. on Wednesday, March 26, which was caused by burnt popcorn. Two more alarms were received from the same apartment during the following day at 6:24 a.m. and 9:54 p.m., caused by excessive steam from a pot and burnt food, respectively. The final two alarms were caused by burnt popcorn at 4:52 a.m. on Saturday, March 29 and 2:35 a.m. on Sunday, March 30.
"There's only so much we could take, you know?" Stacy Kubrik '14, who organized the seizure of the stove with the other residents of the Sussman apartment, said. "I mean, why the hell do you need to have popcorn at 5 a.m.? That's such a freshman thing to do, how can you go at least three years in college without learning how to not burn popcorn in the microwave?"
"I mean, what would you have done?" Jordan Marcus '15, another concerned resident, said. "I was up late studying for my economics test on Sunday and after I'd finally gotten to sleep all of a sudden the alarm was blaring and I had to go out and stand in the cold for fifteen minutes while Campo looked around in the apartment."
Kubrik, along with two other students, who wished to remain anonymous, rang the doorbell of the offending apartment at approximately 10 p.m. on Monday, March 31. When one of the residents opened the door, Kubrik and the others forced their way into the apartment, followed by six other students who had been hiding around the corner.
They quickly made their way upstairs, where they set to work dismantling and removing the stove and the microwave from their places in the kitchen.
"They didn't even protest all that much," one of the stove liberalists said. "After we started working on the stove they sort of just stood there and stared at us. I think they thought we were some drug-induced hallucination."
Perhaps due to their confusion, the residents of the offending apartment did not call Campus Safety until the stove had been carried away, when the students broke out into a heated debate over how best to get it out the front door.
"For the first few minutes, I wasn't really sure what I was looking at," Lawrence Britt, associate director of Campus Safety, said. "There were students on either side of the door trying to shove the stove through. And then there was another group of students who'd heard them yelling and just came out to watch."
While Britt returned to his car to call for additional officers, the stove liberalists abandoned the project and took to the hills (literally, in some cases, as several students disappeared into the North Woods trails). While the stove had to be abandoned in the doorway, one student made off with the microwave in the direction of Kimball Hall.
Maintenance was called to remove the stove from the doorway and re-install it, as well as to order a replacement microwave. At the time of this article, the request is on maintenance's queue and will be addressed as soon as possible, according to a representative.
"I really don't think it was all our fault," David Dumont '14, a resident of the offending apartment, said. "I mean, these detectors are way sensitive. I had a friend who was taking a shower, and just the steam managed to set it off. It's ridiculous."
Aside from being socially ostracized and unable to enjoy hot meals for the foreseeable future, the residents of the offending apartment sustained no damage from the event.