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.

In the river Houses, where rumors of flooding were rampant over the summer due to unusually heavy rainfall, House storage was relatively safe.

"At Eliot House, we kept stuff up on pallets," Larson said. "We had a little bit of water, but we made it through."

Houses usually end up with unclaimed boxes and furniture after the set number of days for students to gather their belongings.

One condition of House storage is that all unclaimed boxes and items become College property after seven days following registration. The College can then decide if it wants to use, sell or throw out the left-overs physics notes and lampshades.

Most House superintendents, however, givestudents another chance to claim their propertybefore it gets to the College.

"We have five or 10 boxes left over," MatherHouse Superintendent Miguel Casillas said. "I'llcall the students to let them know."

In Eliot, Larson said most leftovers wereclaimed, but that he is willing to store remainingitems in the short-term.

"I'll hold on to them for a while," he said.

Those unsure about using House storage nextsummer should investigate the options.

For House storage, College policy dictates thatstudents are allowed to store up to six boxes ofone by one by two-foot size. In addition,oversized items such as couches, lamps and chairscan be stored to an unspecified amount.

Bob Phinney, manager of Cambridge Self Storage,445 Concord Ave., said he often gets 35 to 40students storing items over the summer.

"I'm usually pretty full, though," Phinneysaid.

Located near Fresh Pond, the storage companyoffers as its smallest unit a four by five byeight-foot room at $75 per month.

At The Storage Depot, 264 Monsignor O'BrienHighway, manager Martin Minerva said many requestsarrived last season for student storage--so manythat they had to refer many to a sister store inQuincy.

"We had about 30 to 40 students and we didn'thave a lot of space open," Minerva said.

The Storage Depot, near CambridgesideGalleria, rents a four by five by eight-foot spacefor $67.50 per month.

The Metropolitan Moving and StorageCorporation, 134 Massachusetts Ave., near KendallSquare, rents a five by seven by 10-foot room for$55 per month with a four month minimum.

"We get a fair amount (of students)," ownerNeil Mizner said. "It's not our primary business,but we do get a surge in the summer.