Vandalism at Iowa State is usually either a result of first-year students or an alcohol-related incident, said several campus authorities.

Among the most prevalent cases of vandalism are broken windows, damaged furniture, pulled fire alarms and discharged fire extinguishers.

Ginny Arthur, associate director of residence life, said one form of vandalism that is common is “trashing” the residence halls.

“There are bathrooms that seem to get some abuse periodically, with stools being plugged up and that sort of thing,” Arthur said. “There are sometimes holes in the walls and broken windows that are not always the result of intentional vandalism.”

Darryl Knight, associate director for facilities operations, said all the vandalism, whether accidental or intentional, does have its costs.

“We run $25,000 to $75,000 [in damage costs per year]. It goes up and down. It’s gone down the last two years,” he said.

Knight said this cost is almost always covered by the university if the vandal is unknown.

“We don’t allot for it, we just eat it,” he said. “We don’t have a specific line item for vandalism.”

In extreme instances, however, Knight said individual residence halls, houses or buildings have to pay for the cost. Repeated false fire alarms or replacing doors numerous times may cause residence life to take action.

“What the residence life folks do is they meet with the residence hall government and decide whether they are going to charge the house, floor or building as a whole,” Knight said. “They don’t do that very often. It’s not a fee, but a fine governed by residence life.”

Those fines would only be imposed on a residence hall if a culprit is never found. Arthur said in most instances, people that commit vandalism aren’t usually identified, especially in apartment-style housing like Frederiksen Court.

“We rarely identify who’s responsible. In an apartment, it’s more anonymous,” she said. “It presents some problems in terms of identifying. It could be people who live there. It could be people’s guests.”

Knight also said most vandalism occurs in dorms where first-year students reside.

“It feels [like vandalism occurs] where you have a high percentage of freshmen living. The males tear up more than what females do, considerably,” he said.

Arthur agreed that residences with a younger student population usually report more vandalism.

“Larch and Willow both have a lot of first-year students. Those areas sometimes have more vandalism than others, but not always,” she said.

Arthur said residences like Frederiksen Court are frequent targets for vandalism not because of a high population of first-year students, but rather because older students and alcohol are usually involved.

“I think it’s because they are not thinking. A lot of times it’s alcohol,” she said.

This year has been a pretty quiet year in terms of vandalism. Knight said there was no residence hall that really stuck out in terms of offenses.

“Last year, Helser stood out. A couple years ago, Friley stood out,” he said. “This year has been a pretty good year.”

Arthur said although reports of vandalism originate from all over campus, the numbers have been relatively low for quite a while.

“It’s kind of cyclical; it will move from building to building given the year,” she said. “Relatively speaking, our level of vandalism is low. The last couple years it has been low.”

Arthur said big events on campus, such as Veishea or home football games, do not result in as much vandalism as people may think.

“Actually, in the residence halls, Veishea is pretty quiet. People are usually outside participating in activities or leave for the weekend,” she said. “Vandalism is not high during that weekend, typically.”

Knight said one case in which more action is taken against vandalism is when the Iowa-Iowa State football game is played in Ames.

“For the Iowa football game, we take some precautions. We go out and make sure nothing has been left out they could throw, that they could do anything with. [We] make sure the Dumpsters get emptied [and] we try to ensure that we lock the facilities. That is the only football game we do that for,” he said.

Ames Police Cmdr. Jim Robinson said the most common type of vandalism that he sees around Iowa State and the Ames community takes place in parking lots.

“Sporadically, we will have reports of vandalism to vehicles. It will rise if we have large special events in the community. The most prominent [is] to vehicles,” he said.

Arthur said vandalism in parking lots does take place on campus as well.

“Cars might be keyed or rear-view mirrors broken off. Once in a while, cars are broken into, but not frequently,” she said.

Knight said vandalism in parking lots does happen, but it’s also a good place for someone to get caught.

“We’ve had some problems in the lot here behind Friley. That’s more a target of opportunity. Most of our parking lots have pretty good lighting to them. You’ve got a lot of eyes – anyone can see you,” he said.

Robinson also said a lot of the damage done in and around Campustown is alcohol-related in nature.

“[We have had] some reports where there was an altercation and a broken window in the Campustown area,” he said.

Robinson said many cameras in the parking lots in Campustown assist in helping police make arrests for cases involving vandalism.

“People would be surprised. There are more security cameras within the community than people realize,” he said.