“So Much More Freedom!” Says Student Living in Bear-Infested Off-Campus Housing

As summer nears its end, the Jack-o-Lantern conducted a satisfaction survey of students living on and off campus. Many students elect to live off-campus for the first time during their sophomore summer, and one such student, Rodney Felder, agreed to an interview with this reporter.

Said Felder: “Oh, yeah, I never want to go back to campus! Stuffy dorms? No thank you! I’m finally free here, a whole space to myself!” Felder did, in fact, have his entire house to himself; his roommates had disappeared several months before due to an ursine infestation. As Felder led me through his home, I noticed bloody claw marks all over the wall and several bites taken out of the sofa. When I inquired about the clear signs of bear activity, Felder said, “Oh, don’t worry. They mostly stay in the basement these days. Besides, I’d rather have bears in my house than have to use a dorm shower.”

Felder’s bedroom did have a personal shower. However, when I went to inspect it, there were several rotting deer carcasses inside. It appears that the bears had used it as a store for their leftover meat, but Felder seemed unconcerned: “Meh, still beats living on campus. Who needs a shower anyway? At least I don’t have to climb up 3 flights of stairs just to get to my room! Bleh, dorms SUCK!” And it’s true, Felder no longer has to climb up stairs to reach his room; he now has to scale the outside terrace of the house and crawl in through his bedroom window to avoid the bears nesting by the front door.

When I asked Felder what his landlord thought about this infestation, he responded, “I mean, he was a little surprised that me and my friends wanted to lease this place, but the price was so cheap! $3000 a term to live in a stuffy cramped dorm? Try $2999 a year to live in this paradise!” He kept speaking, but his words were unfortunately muffled by the loud growling and rolling of bear mating occurring upstairs.

When I asked Felder’s landlord Daniel Wells about the state of the home, Wells responded, “If he wants the bears gone, that’s a $10,000 service surcharge! Otherwise, he can just suck it up. I’m being generous by letting these college students live in my home, now stop bothering me!”

Felder stated that after his sophomore summer housing experience, he intends to never live on-campus again: “This is the life, I’m telling you! I can smoke in here, I don’t have to answer to a stupid UGA or whatever, and I can make my own meals! Or, well, I could. Chris’ body is in the kitchen, and the bears are still gnawing at him.”

While Felder’s roommates may have dropped their lease early in the term after being consumed, he revealed to the Jack-O-Lantern that he already has new folks coming in for the fall: “Yeah, I asked a few ‘27s if they’d rather live here or at Summit! So I have about 80 new roommates next term!”

I subsequently emailed Dartmouth Residential Life to inquire their thoughts on the dilapidated and dangerous housing situations that some students would rather endure than live in their dorms. Residential Life responded: “We hear your concerns, and we want all students to have access to equal quality of housing. Starting in the fall, we will introduce bears to every dorm on campus.”

-C.T. ’26