"It's not all that funny," O'Connor says, "I'm sure a student wouldn't intentionally burn his room down....For the most part, students are organized, but sometimes they just don't think."

Cords running everywhere across rooms has been the largest problem, he said, and "hot plates should have been outlawed years ago."

Superintendents of the houses do a twice-yearly room inspections, during which they look for "illegal" appliances.

"If we find any electrical appliances, we very nicely tell the students that they're illegal," says Quincy House superintendent Ronnie W. Levesque.

But those inspections rarely yield a surprising or dangerous appliance, according to Levesque and O'Connor. Neither could remember the last time an appliance caused a safety problem.

Levesque, who sat on a safety committee to establish the rules in the Handbook for Students and the House handbooks for residents distributed each fall, says he hasn't noticed a recent increase in illegal appliances, despite the arrival of such conveniences as bread makers and the like.

"I think [there are] Jess, actually," he said.

But he also notes that the room checks are entirely visual, so students can easily hide their contraband kitchenware.

"Looking in closets or draws...we don't do that," he says.

But students certainly have these appliances around.

A senior in Cabot House who "couldn't live without" his electric sandwich maker, microwave, coffee maker, blender or toaster oven says only his roommate's "sixth sense" saved his appliances.

"They came during the day, through the fire door," he says. "We were all just sitting here in the living room."

Fortunately, he says, his prescient roommate had stowed their stuff just the day before.

Students who don't put away their sundry coffee makers and the like end up with a standard two-part form telling them what they need to remove. There is no defined disciplinary penalty for appliances, however.

The inspector returns in a week and "usually it's not there," Levesque says.