Solicitors breaching security

Ah, morning. The sun is shining, the birds are singing and – there are about five Chinese food menus shoved under my door. I like Chinese food as much as the next guy, but do I have to be accosted with Chinese food menus every time I open up the door to my room? It seems the answer is yes.The first time I ever found a menu under my door, I thought it was kind of neat. Even I can get lazy sometimes and the thought of not having to look online or ask my friends for a menu was kind of nice. But then they just kept coming, and coming and coming. Soon they came so fast that as soon as I picked one up, another one managed to slide underneath my door.For weeks, I have desperately tried to prevent the menus from slipping under my door. One night I put a towel in front of my door so that nothing could slide through. It didn’t work. The next morning, my towel had somehow been pushed aside, with a Chinese menu sitting right next to it. On another occasion, I saw the Chinese food man waiting for someone to enter my dorm, so that he could do his dirty work. I purposely avoided him and went in another door, so that he couldn’t come in. I probably should have just let him in and asked him not to put one under my door, because as soon as I walked past my door, someone else let him in.The real problem isn’t the menus. The problem is that random people from outside of the university have access to the dorm. Today it’s the Chinese menu guy, but tomorrow it could be someone who wants to steal something from my room. The dorms are supposed to be safe and secure, but the card swipe at the door merely acts as an inconvenience to anyone who wants to get inside.Theft is common on campus. No one deserves to have his or her things stolen, but there is a difference between a person leaving his or her wallet out on a table in Wilson Commons and having someone enter his or her dorm room.One day I was sitting in my room when a woman who must have been in her 30s knocked on my door. She told me that she was doing a survey for her Public Relations class. I guess she was studying at Dominos University, because her “survey” involved selling me pizzas. This is unacceptable. It is against UR policy to solicit by knocking on doors and this policy should be enforced. No one should be allowed into the dorms except for people associated with the university and their guests. People from outside of the university should not have access to my room and dorm security needs to improve in order to prevent these people from gaining access. Gorode can be reached at kgorode@campustimes.org.