Pattern of falling rubbish at Virgiel

Delta received two videos attached below showing students with bare torsos shoving a bed base and a fridge out of an open third floor window. The person who submitted the videos said that the incident took place on Sunday, 8 September 2024, at around 16:00.

People at Virgiel were surprised because there was no one in the clubhouse around that time. Sanctus Virgilius’ (‘the largest in Delft’), the Catholic student union, building borders Oude Delft and Barbarasteeg.

Marijn Geldof, External Commissioner at Virgiel, reported that the society had not dumped the items, but that they had come from the adjacent student house. Virgiel owns that property, i.e. is the students’ landlord. Geldof said that the waste did not end up on the public road, but in a shared courtyard from where it was taken to a container. Geldof said the students had been told that their behaviour would not be tolerated. He said that the students expressed remorse and promised that it would not happen again.

But a forwarded WhatsApp message dated 16 August 2024 showed that other items had also been dumped over a month previously. Neighbours reported that rubbish had been dumped in their bicycle parking area, which is likely to be the same communal courtyard. Geldof says he was not aware of this, as the students would otherwise have been contacted.

Junk had also previously been dumped on the Barbarasteeg public road from Virgiel’s premises. Neighbours speak of an ‘ongoing problem of rubbish and excrement thrown outside’. To the latter accusation, Geldof reacts with surprise. A threat stated in a WhatsApp message – ‘we can also throw it in your room’ – was also new to him.

“If we see junk lying around in Barbarasteeg, we grab a broom and clean it up,” the External Commissioner said.

He cannot comment on a complaint of 2 October 2023 about rubbish dumped in Barbarasteeg because there was a different Board then. Even the previous Board cannot find a report about it.

Geldof therefore advises neighbours with complaints to contact Virgiel’s Board directly about any nuisance because throwing rubbish out of windows ‘is something that our association does not want’. Geldof stated that Virgiel, as a Board and a landlord, will take action to stop these excesses.