Alicia Ferraiuolo
Ads Manager
Emeritus
There are several well-known buildings on campus—L.P. Young Student Center, Rhodes Hall, Redfern Arts Center, “The Hotel Huntress”—and now, 324 Main St. may become a possible addition to those landmarks.
“The toilet paper house” on Main Street solely houses toilet paper, paper towels and other paper products for the on-campus bathrooms in the dorms, academic buildings and residential halls. “We do have a building in which we store toilet paper,” Frank Mazzola, director of Physical Plant at Keene State College, said.
To be clear, the building was not built or bought for this sole purpose, but was “acquired a few years ago,” Mazola added. Paper products were not originally stored in the “very nice brick building” on Main Street, but instead were available on the campus before recent renovations to Fiske Hall. “We used to store the toilet paper and paper towels in the basement of Fiske Hall, but when there were renovations four years ago, we had to relocate the toilet paper and paper towels to the empty house,” Mazzola said.
The building, located near Bruder Street and close to the Carriage Barn Bed & Breakfast, appears to have been, at one time, a residence. “I don’t think a house should be utilized for that purpose; it should be utilized for housing or classes”, junior Kelsey Schild, said. “Even the laundry room would be better,” she added.
After Spring Weekend, many students complained that their on-campus housing bathrooms lacked toilet paper for a majority of the weekend.
“We were out for Spring Weekend”, Shannon Daley said, “It has happened a couple of times a year. Last semester the entire dorm [was without toilet paper] for 3 days—almost a week. We had to go to different dorms for toilet paper”.
Mazzola was not aware of the recent situation with a lack of toilet paper in dorms and a member of UNICCO was unavailable for comment. “Members of the custodial staff [UNICCO] pick it up once or twice a month in a van,” said Mazzola, adding, “It’s a regular schedule of toilet paper pick up and bathroom service is seven days a week.”
Some students on campus were unaware that the building belonged to the college—and that it is used for paper product storage. Many didn’t see the reasoning behind utilizing a building for storage and not school related activities.
“I kind of think it’s weird—maybe in each building there should be a closet to store it in, not a building,” Stephanie Smith, a junior from Fairfield, Conn., said.
The building may not have always been utilized for paper products, but for now, that is what it will be used for. “We’d rather have them [the paper products] on campus—but we don’t have space in the middle of campus,” Mazzola said.
Alicia Ferraiuolo can be contacted at aferraiuolo@keene-equinox.com