Tragedy of the Commons: My Communal Toilet

So whenever I hear Tragedy of the Commons mentioned - (which is at least once a day in each of my classes as an environmental science major) - I think immediately one thing....fisheries. In every single environmental class I have ever taken, tragedy of the commons has at some point been discussed, and always in the context of fisheries. For some reason professors love asking students to name cases where tragedy of the commons has occurred. And the first answer I always hear is.....you guessed it, fisheries. You'd think that the other environmental majors in the class would start thinking of different examples after 3 years, but no its always fisheries. It's always the lobster industry in Maine, or the collapsed cod industry in New England.
Frankly, I am tired of hearing about fish. Now I'm not saying that the health of our fisheries is unimportant, because it is very important. It's just that fish have no direct significance in my daily life. I rarely eat them, and I haven't been deep sea fishing in almost 2 years.
So today I say enough with the fish. Let's move onto something more prevalent in our daily college lives. Lets instead make women's public restrooms our new poster children for the tragedy of the commons.
So I came up with this tragedy of the commons example while I was sitting on the wooden seat of our communal toilet. I was looking down at the floor when suddenly I became cognizant of all the dirt and gunk surrounding me. The bathroom floor was covered with hair, dust, dirt, and some unknown sticky substances. And it didn't stop there... The sink was crusted over with toothpaste and what looked like leftover chunks of food, the mirror had water stains all over it, and the bathtub had its very own happy trail leading down to the drain. Basically, the whole bathroom was really GROSSSSS and the mere sight of it made me throw up a little.
As I rushed out of the bathroom, two questions weighed heavy on my mind: A. Why hadn't I noticed how dirty it was before? and B. Why hasn't anyone cleaned the bathroom? Are we waiting for mold to start growing on the walls?
After deep contemplation, I realized that our hallway communal bathroom had suffered the same fate as the fish....It had become a tragedy of the commons. I should have seen it coming, but unfortunately I noticed when it had become too late. We hadn't cleaned the bathroom once since we had arrived. Now everyone in our hallway is pretty good at cleaning their rooms, but the bathroom, that was a whole different story. And how could such a terrible thing happen you might ask? Well I would say in retrospect that it all boils down to property rights; no individual in our hall held private property rights of the bathroom. Trust me, if I did I can tell you certain people would not be allowed to use it. The point is, is that because no one owns the bathroom, no one is quick to volunteer to clean it. After all, it wasn't me that blew chunks in the sink; and it sure as heck doesn't sound appealing to clean someone elses masticated leftovers.
Luckily my frightening experience prompted me to take immediate action. I started vacuuming and sweeping and soon most everyone in the hall followed suit. Thanks to the efforts of four individuals we cleaned the entire bathroom in about 10 minutes.
2 morals of this story: 1. Take the lead in acting to preserve a commons. You might be surprised to find that once you take action, others may be willing to help. 2. Communal toilets are better examples of tragedy of the commons cases than fisheries. After all fish are slimy, smelly, and stupid. I think ex-boyfriends already fill that role well enough!