[nabs-l] Blindness and roommates

[Sami Osborne]

Hi all,

As you probably know, I am currently a college freshman and 
really enjoy it so far.  However, I have experienced major issues 
with my two roommates throughout the course of the semester.  It 
seems to me that both of them are not very organized with their 
belongings, and that I am the most organized out of the three of 
us.  The first incident that happened was back in September, when 
one of my mates charged his laptop using my power strip while I 
was home for the weekend, and I therefore didn't notice until 
when I returned to campus on Monday morning.  Also, the same guy 
took his lamp and put it on my desk rather than his own, and also 
put one sock of his under my bed and the other one under his.  
Also, both of them often times invite their friends into our rom, 
and it can get pretty rowdy.  Most nights, they  stay up later 
than me - usually until 1:30 or 2:00 AM.  While I personally 
don't have a problem with this, it does irritate me that they are 
staying up listening to music and watching TV while I'm trying to 
get some rest for the next day.  It also seems as though they 
take full advantage of the fact that I go home every weekend to 
get into or even steal my personal posessions.  For example, they 
took away my desk chair without any notice to me, and didn't 
bring it back to my desk until the following Monday, and even so, 
I had to ask them to give it back to me.  The last straw happened 
just today, when I discovered that they had stolen my night table 
next to my bed.  I have no idea why they did that, but that's 
what they did.  Fortunately, they restored it, but I was really 
shocked and angry that they did this.

So as you can see, I've had some rather major issues with my 
roommates throughout the whole semester.  The things that they've 
been doing are very disrespectful to me personally.  I reported 
most of these concerns to the director of Residence Life just 
this morning, but he just responded to just have a conversation 
with my roommates, and that if it didn't work, we just have a 
meeting with them as well as my RA to figure out what to do next.

It's also very unfortunate that, one of my accommodations was to 
have a single room, but that request was never granted to me.  
When I confronted the Residence Life director, he simply 
responded that they did try to accommodate my request by only 
putting me in a unit for four, because apparently all the other 
units have up to seven people in them.  Although, as you can see, 
that wasn't exactly what I asked for.

So I had a few questions for you guys: first, do you think that 
my roommates have been taking advantage of my absence over the 
weekend, as well as maybe my blindness, (like maybe thinking, 
"Oh, he's blind, he won't notice") to use and/or steal my 
belongings? Second, what kinds of things should I do to prevent 
this from happening again in the future?

I  hope you can get back to me soon, because this is really a 
serious matter for me.

Thanks and enjoy your week,

Sami