Campus Quandaries: Toilet paper and roommate politics

In "Campus Quandaries,” Satchel Walton explores the practical ethics of life at UNC through reader-submitted scenarios. This week, he takes on the social politics of changing housemates and the morality of taking toilet paper from public restrooms. 

Changing housemates: What to say, when to say it?

A reader asked the following: What is the best way to tell my current roommates I am not living with them again next year? I still want to be close with my current roommates, but I’ve found an arrangement next year with different people that’s cheaper and in a better location.

When you don’t tell current roommates or housemates that you have made housing plans without them next year, there is a tacit expectation that you will be living with them again — especially when you live off campus and have signed a lease together once. 

That tacit expectation represents a compact, not a contract, so you are not in the wrong if you have found a marginally better situation. You should not feel like you are abandoning them. 

A crucial part of college is learning to be a reasonable adult. You have to trust your friends' 'reasonable-adult-skills' enough to know that if you tell them in a tactful way, making your intention to remain close clear, they should accept it and not resent you.

The important thing to do is to tell them sooner rather than later. If you wait until the moment it is time to re-sign on your current place, they might have to scramble to find someone to take your spot. What if your current roommates find a new person who has to then jump ship from their current arrangement last-minute, causing a cascade of awkward conversations and hurt feelings close to housing deadlines? 

Given that they ought to be reasonable adults, the only reason your roommates would have to resent you in this situation is if you tell them too late, leaving them with too little time.

The tragedy of the toilet paper commons

My friend’s suitemate made the following moral argument: Toilet paper is free in the common bathroom on the first floor of Koury Residence Hall. But we still have to buy it for our suite, which has a bathroom you’d have to go through our room to get to. Given that we could have just gone downstairs every time to use the bathroom and the free toilet paper, why not just take toilet paper from the downstairs bathroom when we’re out?

An intriguing thought. It does seem a bit unjust that those in larger suites generally have their toilet paper replaced for them, while you have to go get it from Target.

However, the argument that stealing the downstairs toilet paper for your own use would be morally equivalent to going to the bathroom downstairs every time doesn’t hold up. 

By way of analogy, imagine your parents call and make the following argument: Any time I wanted some water at home, I could have walked to the park and used the public drinking fountain for free. Therefore, I shouldn’t have to pay my water bill.

This would obviously be absurd. Your parents should pay their part for the convenience of having water piped straight to their kitchen, and you should pay for the convenience of having a bathroom — including toilet paper — right by your room, accessible only to you and your three suitemates.

Additionally, stealing said toilet paper could cause the downstairs bathroom to run out, creating an unfortunate situation for anyone who uses it. The housekeeping staff I spoke to in Spencer Residence Hall said they have to replace toilet paper in the lobby bathroom every day and they wouldn’t approve of it being taken.

“He slightly has a point, but also, is it morally right? Maybe not,” housekeeper Katelyn Sharpe said of the scenario.

“He should be supplying his own,” housekeeper Kimberly Sharpe said, and coworker Carlos Roque agreed.

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