A Sunriver rental company is charging a student group for trashing a rental house during a retreat last month, but a co-director for the group says the accusation isn’t true, and group members cleaned the house thoroughly before leaving.
Sunray Inc., a vacation home rental company popular among University student groups, is alleging that the UO Hawaii Club left a house so dirty during its recent trip that it required more than twice the normal time and labor to clean.
The dispute comes about 14 months after several dozen ASUO student government members admitted to drinking alcohol and smoking pot during a fall finance retreat funded with thousands of dollars in student money.
Hawaii Club co-Director Nester Ugale, who on Jan. 25 paid $784 in group members’ money for the group to stay in a home during a weekend ski retreat, said he thinks the company is just trying to bust ASUO programs after last year’s incident in Sunriver.
“We’re not like them,” Ugale said, referring to the ASUO members last year.
Sunray Web Director Jake Ortman said a “red flag” went up when he saw the ASUO wanted to rent a house, but he added that the company is definitely not out to get college students. The inspection is just part of the cleaning process, he said.
“We’ve got this down to an art,” he said. “It’s not like we’re doing this fly-by-night.”
After the Hawaii Club left “Sand Trap #4” on Jan. 29, inspectors found “tons of beer bottles” and vomit in the hot tub, Ortman said. He said the house required extensive cleaning, resulting in an extra $100 fee charged to Ugale’s credit card.
Ortman, a former online editor for the Emerald, said nothing was damaged, and that it could have looked a lot worse. Although he didn’t see the house, he said that inspectors said “it was pretty trashed.”
Sunray inspection documents state that empty bottles were found “around the home in the snow.” There wasn’t documentation about the amount of bottles, but they confirmed finding vomit in the hot tub.
Ortman said there is no bias against the ASUO.
“Our inspectors have been with us for any many years, and I have no reason to doubt their judgment,” Ortman said.
Because of last year’s incident, Hawaii Club members read the articles beforehand and “took mad precautions,” including photographing the house before leaving, Ugale said. The Emerald has requested the photographs, but they were not received by publication time.
Ugale said that calls were made to the rental office on Jan. 28 to ask that the company clean the hot tub, which he said had dirty snow from the night before.
The company told them its inspectors knew the difference between murky water and puke, but Ugale said he was the last one to swim in the hot tub, and there was no vomit in the water.
Ugale said that people woke up with a to-do list and made sure everything was clean before check-out. The only thing they didn’t do was vacuum, he said.
The Hawaii Club didn’t use student incidental fees for the trip. Group members thought that because students paying incidental fees would not benefit from the ski trip, they should not have to pay for it, Ugale said. Group members each paid about $45.
ASUO Programs Administrator David Goward said that although the funding for the trip came out of pocket, the ASUO is still represented because the trip was funded through the ASUO after the group members put their money into a student government account.
Goward said that because the ASUO Executive failed to address retreat policies and alcohol policies after the incident last year, there are no clear guidelines. Currently, the ASUO is working to draft a “Dos and Don’ts” manual.
“We just hope to eliminate any gray areas that might exist,” he said.
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