What started as a joke among staff members turned into a real trespassing security threat on campus.
About 18 months ago, things began disappearing from Carlson Hall, which houses the department of history and the ethnic studies program.
Faculty members found their wallets missing, along with bags, candy and other personal items. Staff members’ lunches also began disappearing from the refrigerator located in the Tanner Humanities Center, a room attached to Carlson Hall that is used for monthly lectures.
Beth Tracy, administrative officer for the history department, said she assumed another faculty member had taken the food.
“We never knew who really did it,” Tracy said. “We just kept joking and waiting for someone to cough it up.”
Staff members stopped joking, however, when things began to get more serious.
One Carlson Hall staff member came into his room one day and found that his door had been unlocked and his couch had been slept on.
Another staff member discovered that the shower in one of the bathrooms had been used because the floor was wet, Tracy said. The bathrooms in Carlson Hall have showers because the building was formerly used as a women’s dormitory in the late 1930s.
One day last summer, a professor spotted a homeless man walking around the building, Tracy said.
Police were called and the man was given a warning to stay away from the building.
Sarah Orton, executive secretary in the history department, described “Jeremiah,” as staff dubbed him, as a man in his early 40s.
He temporarily lived in Carlson Hall by pretending to be a student, said Lindsay Adams, graduate director.
“He would walk around at night and carry a stack of typed paper,” Adams said. “When he was challenged, he would ask where a professor’s office was and said he needed to turn in a paper.”
Adams also said the man memorized names of the staff to hold a believable argument.
Tracy said she believes the man had a copy of the key to the building. However, a window in the graduate-student lounge located in the basement has often been found open.
Also, the window to the third-floor women’s bathroom was found broken, along with the men’s bathroom window on the second floor.
Both windows are located in the back of the building and can be accessed through a fire escape that reaches every floor.
Since the incident, little effort has been made to secure the building, said Karen Iannucci, administrative assistant for the history department.
Besides pulling up the fire escape ladder, only the refrigerator’s lock has been replaced.
Both bathroom windows have no glass and broken glass pieces can still be found scattered on the fire escape.
“Security has warned us to lock our doors when we go to the bathrooms, so we try to be as diligent about safety as we can,” Tracy said.
Campus police were unavailable for comment.
Tracy said Carlson Hall is a target for crime because of its location. The building, which is located on 1400 East, has a bus and shuttle stop directly in front of it and a TRAX stop less than a block away.
Because faculty members don’t come on weekends, Iannucci said the building is “pretty easy to get into.”
“If you stay in one of the bathrooms and stay over night, no one would really see you,” Iannucci said.
As far as the homeless man who was found there, Tracy said he wasn’t arrested because campus police officers don’t arrest the homeless, opting instead to give them a warning.
“They are not a threat,” Tracy said. “They just wanted some food and a warm place to stay.”
New signs have been put up on bulletin boards inside the building aiming to help the homeless.
If you are homeless or hungry, the sign reads, “dial 211 for help 24/7 and for advice referrals in Salt Lake County regarding shelter, food and other forms of assistance.”