Disclaimer: The Iowa State Daily does not endorse the actions described in the following article. It is intended as a hypothetical, and is not being advised by the writer as a course of action; only as an informative story.

It’s that time of year again. Plants are sprouting from the ground, the bitter chill of winter is giving way to afternoons of warming sunshine and students are ramping up to party the night away during VEISHEA.

In all of this joy and excitement as the spring semester ends, another interesting event is about to occur: student evictions.

That’s right, those dastardly rent payments that some negligent or forgetful students have avoided paying are about to bite them squarely on the rump.

For those out there unfamiliar with eviction processes in Ames, many apartment buildings will go through their roster of tenants who have received multiple warnings about back rent due, and will go up to their apartments in the wee hours of the morning.

The workers will knock on the door of the unlucky tenant to be evicted, and if the person comes to the door, they are given a short period to pack up their belongings and get off of the premises.

If no one answers the door or the phone call that has been attempted oh-so-many times before from the front office, then the workers enter the apartment and proceed to unceremoniously gather up the belongings of the person/s and dump them into a vehicle. Those belongings are then unceremoniously dumped by the dumpster and/or on the curb of the apartment building.

Here’s where the interesting part comes up. For anyone that has ever gone curb shopping during moveout periods, eviction day is a shopper’s delight if your moral compass doesn’t mind that the things you are pawing through are likely everything some poor schmuck owns: clothing, shoes, computers, TVs, DVDs, iPod, luggage, prescription drugs, drug paraphernalia, couches, chairs, microwaves, grilles, dishes, the list of possibilities goes on and on.

Everything tossed is open to be taken because, well, the evicted peeps didn’t pay rent for a long time and didn’t bother to try and arrange something with the apartment owners to keep their living quarters.

With all this in mind, it is fairly easy to rationalize grabbing a few free toys. And for those still struggling with the moral problem, well, think about the number of times this evicted person was told about the pending day — well, at least the number of attempts to contact them by phone, mail, email and notes on their door. Based on the evicted’s lack of interest in paying rent as the rest of us have to do, why not have a curb shopping holiday?

To top it all off, for those of you still clinging on to any moral outrage or hesitation, the person who was evicted didn’t even bother with being at their apartment to deal with getting the boot, or they just didn’t bother to respond to any of the attempts to inform them about the pending eviction, which tells me they don’t care about their possessions or are too immature to be allowed to keep things.

OK, fine, the immature argument is really pushing the limit, but still, the person isn’t there and I have little sympathy for someone that is so utterly irresponsible.

I had a friend a few years back that was evicted in this manner. His roommates — who he did not know, as they were assigned — had not paid rent in something like six months. My friend was behind on his rent by two months, but because of his roommates’ negligence, he was lumped in with them and given the boot.

Their possessions were tossed, but my friend was able to pack up his stuff and went out to the curb with his stuff to sit and wait for someone to get out of class and come get his stuff with a pickup truck.

My friend was at least responsible enough to be there to keep his possessions from the trash bin. The roommates’ stuff was up for grabs; along with many other folks’ personal property.

With this information, many readers out there are likely contemplating the free-for-all curb shopping event of the season without much moral hesitation. The final holdup is the personal pride or possibility of embarrassment in digging through trash bag after trash bag — which is how the workers tend to move the evicted’s stuff out to the curb — all just to find a few nice baubles or score big with an iPod discovery.

There is little advice that can be given to overcome the fear of being ridiculed by your friends for riffling through what appears to be trash, also the potential judgment from spectators shaking their heads at how “low” you’ve sunk to be picking and choosing among the hard-earned items of another unfortunate enough to be cast out of their residence.

So, to overcome the onlookers, try to rationalize the cool things you might get against the opinions of others. Frankly, I don’t care what you think of me if I score a big win and find a sweet DVD collection, nice electronic or even the grand prize of someone’s secret stash of legally-questionable recreational stuffs.

Maybe this is all still appalling to you, maybe you cannot believe someone would just stroll along and take what belongs to others, but it happens and to a college student — or even your average townie — when something hits the curb, it doesn’t matter where it came from if it’s shiny and expensive.