How Clean Is Your Student's Kitchen?

By Dan Oldfield

WE ALL know teenagers are messy, but how has this affected their time at university?

So, nine months into the university year and student's are preparing for exams and their holidays in the summer break.

However, take a look into their halls of residence or other accommodation and you'll find their kitchens in the exact state it's been in all year; that is dirty.

Although this obviously isn't the most important thing right now with coursework deadlines and revision sessions it still poses the question, how clean are students?

A story in the Telegraph reported how kitchens in Oxford University had failed inspection 134 times in one year.

The same story applies closer to home in Canterbury Christ Church University where a trip into one of the kitchens in the campus halls, or one of the student villages Lanfranc or Parham Road, will reveal a kitchen unsafe to use.

Speaking from experience often there is some sort of mouldy food in the fridge, a deluge of washing up to either complete or to put away and tea towels and oven gloves in no fit state to use.

Despite a cleaner being employed as part of the student's weekly rent, it often appears that they are away on leave much more often than are actually present and their work is limited to cleaning student en-suite bathrooms and the hallways.

One Canterbury student, Tom Adams, is particularly alarmed with the inconsistency of the cleaners: "I came to study and get my degree, I knew that I'd obviously have to cook and clean but was also told before we arrived that we would have a cleaner come in everyday to help us with this, so far this has not happened as consistently as it should have."

It seems that this is a problem that has alarmed parents. "The last thing you think of as your child goes off to university would be that there are unsanitary kitchens and living conditions. Although expected to an extent with nine or so teenagers living together in one space it is alarming that the cleaner's haven't been in as often as possible and that the student's themselves don't clean their own living space."

So as the first year students head off to live in houses and flats for their second year and the new Fresher's take over the halls of residence, will anything change? Perhaps in a year or so How Clean Is Your House will indeed change to How Clean Is Your Student's House.