A prank has left residents of the Colonel By Retirement Living Residence in shock after vandals broke into the home’s garden.
The incident garnered a lot of attention online after Kerry Chalmers, a Carleton alumnus, made a post on Facebook in which he claims Carleton students who participated in Fall Orientation were behind the prank. The post has since been shared hundreds of times.
The incident happened late at night on Labour Day, and resulted in a soapy pond and the death of twenty koi fish that lived in the pond.
A week later, on Sept. 13, Chalmers said the vandals returned and put even more soap into the pond.
Chalmers’ mother, Peggy Chalmers, is a resident at the home, and was one of many who said she enjoyed spending time in the garden watching the fish.
“Everyone was so upset when they were suddenly just killed like that overnight, it’s just something you can’t readily understand,” Peggy Chalmers said.
“There’s only so many things you can do here,” Kerry Chalmers said. “They can sit out front and watch the cars go by or they can sit in the garden. So something like this, the fact that they were bright orange, they could see them and they’d count them everyday.”
This type of prank is not new for the residence, as the pond has been soaped in previous years. This year, however, was the first year there were fish involved.
As a result, the home will be installing security cameras in the garden in order to avoid this happening again, said Jane Brennan, the director of the residence.
Despite initially having some trouble getting in touch with Carleton’s administration, Brennan said she has since spoken to representatives from the university who all expressed similar shock at the incident.
She added that although she does not think the university is responsible, the timing of the incident is suspicious.
“Obviously, this is something that people do on their own. It’s just the timing with frosh week and everything . . . You can’t help but think it’s students out enjoying frosh week,” Brennan said.
Kerry Chalmers said he acknowledges the incident wasn’t part of the official frosh program, but said that “It’s sort of like the typical frosh type activity, quite possibly not even knowing there were fish in the pond, just ‘oh, well we know this pond’s here, if we put soap in it it’s going to be all bubbly and that’ll be funny.’ ”
Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) president Fahd Alhattab said there is no evidence suggesting Carleton students were responsible for the incident.
“I’m sure if such information exists and is brought to light, CUSA alongside all the other partners in Carleton’s Fall Orientation . . . will do their best to make amends and continue to support our surrounding community,” Alhattab said.
Alhattab added the residence did most of the clean-up of the river themselves, but CUSA offered to help with finding out who was behind the prank.
As frosh week ended three days before the pond was soaped for the first time, the university does not believe the two are related, said Jeremy Brzozowski, manager of the Student Experience Office at Carleton.
“I really don’t think it’s fair to speculate in who could have been involved,” Brzozowski said. “In this case I think it’s important to raise awareness on how poor decisions have an impact on the community.”
As for Brennan, her only request is that students come to see firsthand the impact pranks can have.
“I would like for the ones who were involved in this to spend some time with the residents and to understand [that] these are not just old people who have nothing to contribute any more. They contribute an awful lot to everybody’s day here,” she said.
