Amid Pandemic, Stanford Seizes Historic Opportunity to Clean Co-ops

In a shocking email to the Stanford community, Vice Provost for Students Affairs Susie Brubaker-Cole announced today that Stanford’s seven cooperative houses (‘co-ops’) were cleaned for the first time in their history last week.

“I am writing during an unprecedented time at our university,” the email began. “Last month, our cooperative houses, which provide such a wonderful community on campus, were evacuated by students. Given the extraordinary situation of having no students in the houses, I made the decision that for the first time in our history, University cleaning staff would sanitize the buildings.”

Brubaker-Cole cited the University’s measures to stop the spread of COVID-19 as the reason for the sanitation. “We did not take this decision lightly, but medical experts advised that these treasured residences were potential hotspots for viral transmission due to their highly communal living practices and resistance to guidance from R&DE.”

Residential and Dining Enterprises staff were shocked to enter Kairos to find that there were no cleaning supplies in the house at all. The storage designated for those supplies had apparently been filled with bottles of home-brewed kombucha and rancid wine and cheese, hastily abandoned when students left campus last quarter.

In 576 Alvarado, R&DE staff found a newly-painted wall mural with the words “Cleaning is Colonialism.” Outside Columbae, they were greeted by the few remaining students, who angrily chanted, “We do not consent!” and “Hey hey! Ho ho! Sanitation’s got to go!”

The Review has confirmed an eyewitness report that the structural integrity of EBF had been so compromised by sustained marijuana smoke and bad bass beats that the application of cleaning fluids collapsed the walls in seconds. All that was found in the pile of dust were the lost SUIDs of frosh at the last “Special Gathering of Special Friends,” also known as “Happy Hour.”

But it wasn’t all bad. One R&DE employee told the Review of her unique experience cleaning Synergy House. “The other student residences had clothes thrown all over the floor. It was a nightmare to clean up! But in Synergy, I didn’t see any clothes at all!”

Brubaker-Cole wrote that remote counseling would be available through CAPS to help former Co-op residents cope with the new sanitary measures.