Number One Inspection: Tips and Tricks

13 September 2013Joanna L

Ah, the Number One inspection; the downfall of the busy Brentonian. The inspectors are ruthless, the penalties tiresome, and the painstaking process takes precious time out of the busy Brentwood schedule. But get it right, and you will be rewarded. With the first Number One inspection of the year fast approaching on Saturday, here are a few tips and tricks to help you succeed.

Keep your room clean during the week: I cannot stress enough the importance of keeping your room in some sort of reasonable shape for the weekday inspections. The cleaner you keep your room during the week, the less you have to clean on Friday night, and therefore the less you have to complain about missing prep. Keeping your room clean during the week also gives you the upper hand when it comes to Dorm of the Week.

Dust: the dust bunnies are a thriving population at Brentwood, and they like to hide in particularly creative places. While a little bit of dust usually isn’t enough to fail you in an inspection, inspectors are often very keen to catch you up when it comes to dust and deduct marks. Pipes everyone; never forget the pipes. Or the radiators.

Dress: believe it or not, Number One dress does, in fact, count toward your room inspection. If your uniform isn’t perfect, then your room isn’t perfect. In fact, for the purposes of Number One Inspections, you may as well just consider yourself to be part of the room.

Have a good organizing system: I’m not suggesting you should shove everything into boxes, but basically, if you have boxes, put things into them; it makes things look a lot neater if you have some sort of organizing system in place. But always neatly of course.

The little things make all the difference: Not everyone has enough time to touch up little things in the room, but it’s really noticeable if you do go to the effort. Wipe down the desks, run a cloth over the windows, fix that extra photo that’s falling down on your wall that you’ve been avoiding for the last few days.

Fridges: they will check the fridge. If you have a fridge in your room, you can pretty much be sure that the inspectors will take a good long look to make sure that last week’s breakfast isn’t cultivating a small bacteria colony in your fridge. The food that you said you were going to eat later on and never got around to before the microbes claimed it as their own? Just throw it out.

Communication: as with most things in roomateship, communication is key. Figure out early who’s going to do what when it comes to vacuuming and garbage, and do it. Make sure not everything is left to the last minute.

Hopefully these seven pillars of wisdom will help you when it comes to your first Number One Inspection. Chase those dust bunnies out; they had the summer to rent the place, but now it’s time to reclaim it as your own. Happy cleaning and good luck! Joanna L, Alex House ‘14