You are spelunking in a dark place. There are obstacles all around you as you try to make your way through the maze of foot-wide "tunnels" made precarious by the objects that could easily fall on your head and bury you in a pile of textbooks, lamps and "misc. school supplies."

You have entered House storage.

With the return of the school year, students across campus have already been exploring the depths of the Houses, looking for the elusive box containing their freshman facebook and lucky penny collection.

For many, it was an easy trip down the stairs and a cumbersome journey back up to their rooms carrying their personal belongings. But others came up empty-handed.

According to Eliot House Superintendent Scott Larson, in the fall, a student's box may be moved as fellow House residents retrieve their bean bag chairs and halogens.

"People were pushing stuff out of the way to get their own stuff," Larson said.

However, this explanation fail to account for items that go missing after storage closes. According to House storage policy, Harvard College assumes no responsibility for boxes and objects that are missing or damaged when students return to claim their belongings.

This fall, a missing-rug phenomenon hit Pforzheimer House in a big way. On the House's popular Pfoho-Open e-mail forum, six students posted pleas for the safe return of missing rugs stored in the basement of Comstock Hall.

"I had (the rug) in the PfoHo storage room," Giridhar Shivaram '00-'99 said of the Pool Room, a storage area devoted to rugs.

Shivaram said that although he placed his name and an identifying sticker on the rug, he still failed to find it when he returned the day before registration.

He now believes it may have disappeared days before.

"Before I got here, a couple of friends went and looked for it and it wasn't there," he said.

Former Pforzheimer Superintendent John Martell, who was present for move-in, said that the Pool Room had been locked for the duration of the vacation and that what likely happened was that another student helped himself to a rug or rugs during move-in.

"All summer, there was no access to it," Martell said.

Shivaram already took a trip to Sears for a new $30 rug, and said although he has not contacted Pforzheimer House authorities about the old one, he plans to soon.