The Georgetown forum, our favorite window into residents’ minds, is well-known for its diatribes against cat killers, newspaper thieves, and Republicans. But last weekend, it turned its critical eye towards the worst criminals of all: partying college students.

Robert Laycock, Citizens’ Association of Georgetown treasurer, got things started by complaining about an O Street party with “a couple of hundred very drunk and/or high kids.” Let’s break out the blockquote for the rest:

I called 911 around 11:30. The police arrive promptly and dispersed the crowd.  The partygoers only walked a few hundred feet away, waited until the police were gone and then returned to the party house and make even more noise. I called 911 again, and again the police arrived promptly along with two GU police cars. The crowd continued to make noise as they left O street. They also harassed one neighbor who was walking her puppy threatening to defecate on her front stoop. There were drug deals going on the sidewalk, people were urinating and getting sick on the sidewalk.

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Last Saturday, a fence surrounding a townhouse on the 3200 block of O Street was vandalized, according to a post on the Georgetown listserv.

This is about when we figured that the poster, Robert Laycock, would accuse Georgetown students of the damage. Let’s just say he surprised us.

“[S]everal individuals, probably inebriated, pulled off the wrought iron railing on the steps leading to the front door of the house,” Laycock, who moonlights as the treasurer of the Citizen’s Association of Georgetown, wrote. “The noise woke up almost everyone on our block.”

He added that the townhouse’s elderly residents, who did not respond to our contact attempts, “depend on the rail for support going up and down the steps.”

In summary: Georgetown residents’ property was damaged on a weekend night. The incident disturbed a number of sleeping neighbors. Another resident, who is involved with a group that isn’t on friendly terms with the University, wrote about the incident without immediately blaming students.

Shit, you guys. Is this a trap, somehow?

Photo: Robert Laycock

GUSA Senators aren’t the only ones concerned about rats—members of the Georgetown Forum listserv are being plagued by rodents as well.

One Georgetown resident sent out a message to the listserv informing them of his significant rat problems:

It seems to me that somehow there needs to be a community wide rat eradication program.

We have a never ending supply of monster sized ravenous rats boring through the walls of my house. I have already spent a considerable amount of money on this problem, but as long as the whole neighborhood is over run with rats, I think problems will continue to arise.

In addition to being disgusting and repulsive, this can’t be very sanitary.

And this neighbor has a novel possible solution:

Incidentally in Florida we don’t see many rats because the snakes eat them. Snakes are clean and solitary creatures but arouse strong passions. But the easiest way to control the rats would be to repopulate Georgetown with some appropriate snake species.

Don’t know what could be done, but it seems to me an important problem to deal with.