Mice and a dope rooftop: Everything you know if you live in LXR

Harbin, Village A, and the townhouses are widely recognized housing options here on the hilltop, but if you’re a freshman, chances are you’ve never even heard of LXR.  The first time I actually stepped foot inside LXR happened to be on move-in day, and I still couldn’t tell you what the acronym stands for, or why you have to walk through an academic building to get to the front entrance.

What follows is everything you need to know before making your sophomore year housing selection, and everything you’re already familiar with if you have the fortune of living there yourself.

Wisey’s is your second home

Technically LXR is considered “on-campus housing,” but let’s be real, outside the front gates = off campus.  If you’re a Wisey’s fan (how could you not be), this makes for a convenient excuse to stop by multiple times per day with absolutely no judgment or questions asked.

You live in fear of the fire alarm going off

On Monday the 26^th of September, the fire alarm went off precisely at 4:35 am. And at 5:10 am. And again at 9 am. The second time it went off my roommate and I tried to just block it out with pillows, but the ear-piercing screeching proved unbearable. Fire alarm 3, us 0.  This particular episode happened to be the night before the first micro economics exam.  Moral of the story is that you have to be on your toes – you never know when it’ll strike next.

The AC doesn’t like to cooperate

The room is either 15 or 115 degrees – there’s just no in between. There’s a solid chance that your room temperature is exactly the opposite of what you want it to be at all times. You win some, you lose some.

You’ve made peace with the mice

There were probably mousetraps already in place when you moved in back in August. You might have screamed or jumped onto a desk the first time you saw a mouse in the dorm, but at this point it’s so routine you barely blink when you spot one chilling in the common room. There’s no getting rid of them, so you might as well call a truce and try to appease them so they don’t steal all your good snacks.

Every other dorm seems miles away

If you’re lucky/were smart enough to attend “What’s a Hoya?”, you might have been able to snag a room in the same building, or even on the same floor as your friends.  If not, making the trek to the other dorms is the ultimate struggle, and finding the energy to retreat back to LXR afterwards is a constant uphill battle (literally).

You’ve spent all your money on M street

Why go to the dining hall when you can go to Pizza Paradiso?

Rooftop and chill?

It’s a well-established fact that LXR’s primary perk is its dope rooftop. When the weather’s nice, it’s a sweet place to kick back and watch the sun set.  The instagram opportunities are endless.

Mold might cause coughing attacks

Apparently mold issues aren’t just a basement thing.  If your room smells musty and is ridiculously humid at all times, you might want to consider calling facilities.  But don’t be surprised if it takes three months of aggressive emails and sending mold samples to a lab for someone to actually do anything about it.

There are literal bars on the basement windows

The biggest mystery about finding out my roommate and I were going to be living in the basement was whether or not there’d be windows in our room.  On move in day, we were ecstatic to discover that we had not just one, but two windows – accentuated by black metal bars.  My dad has elegantly portrayed it as a “glorified prison.”  But hey, at least the sunlight doesn’t wake us up in the mornings (we have the fire alarm for that).

You rarely go to Leo’s

While dangerously close to all the trendy shops and restaurants that M street boasts, Leo’s practically seems miles away from your humble abode. You likely pat yourself on the back the two times per week you make it there, and consequently reward yourself by getting dessert on M street afterwards.