sororities stealing things from fraternities
 

I'm currently having a problem with my chapter and I was wondering if anyone could give me some advice on what to do.

Some girls from my chapter of my sorority has a tendency to take objects from fraternity houses without their knowledge and store them in our house. At first it seemed harmless, and most of the objects were small things that belonged to individual members and were returned the next day, but I'm starting to become concerned about it. Some of the things that girls from my chapter are now taking are very significant to the fraternities (flags, composites and most recently, a charter) and sometimes do not get returned. Nobody in my chapter seems the slightest bit concerned about it, and our president has even participated in it. I'm not really sure what to do about it. I know my chapter would be very upset if someone took our composites or our charter, and yet they tell me that I shouldn't tell the fraternities where their things are because "they should have been more careful".

Does anyone else think this is a serious problem? Do other chapters do this? I really don't think our national office would approve and some of the fraternities are getting really mad at us.

Let me get this straight...they stole a fraternity's CHARTER and the fraternity hasn't done anything to retaliate?

What a bunch of wusses.

Is it bad that I was thinking the same thing?

Is this like, they're stealing stuff so they can "push the fraternity's buttons" stealing, or is it stealing "because they're kleptos" stealing?

Call the police if no one will do anything about their dirty habits.

Oh, we used to do that all the time! It went like this: First, we'd steal a fraternity's composite (or vice versa). Then, they'd have to retaliate, like break into our house in the middle of the night and put porn in our mailboxes, and then we'd give it back. So then, to get back at them for the porn thing, we'd steal their pool balls or whatever, and then they'd take some of us to dinner to get them back, and so on and so on. It was a fun little game. And a good way to meet guys. ;)

At my campus, it became such a problem (Charters, trophies) that the Greek Advisor put a chapter on social probation immediately if turned in. Needless to say, I think it happened once and never again!

Once, while I was President and away for the weekend, a fraternity stole our Charter and the girls knew I would have turned them in in a split second, so they went and begged for the Charter back. How smart they were!!!

Now everyone has wooden letters for bid day and intramurals....those have become the borrowed items as a trade off for Charters. The group who borrowed them now sign and date the back as a badge of honor. The funniest picture I've ever seen.....another chapters Alpha (sorry AGDLynn), my chapters Xi, and third chapters Delta on the roof of a fraternity house to spell out AXiD. We thought it was great....the other sororities were less than amused and demanded their letters back....hahaha!!

Seriously though, have the Greek Advisor, local NPC, or IFC to implement a "punishment" of sorts. The problem will be quickly solved for your chapter and others as well.

Stealing a charter:eek:

War would have been declared;)

I was a founding father for my chapter and my name was right there on it. Top row # 6. That charter ment alot to us. Very hard to get and 2 years of intense work.

So yea, we would have been pissed if it had been taken. Even if it was a joke.

Better to steal all the beer in the house than that charter.

They don't know who has it, all they know is that it's gone and they're freaking out.

So, okay, let me tell you all about the time the Pi Kapps released chickens on our hall (no houses - we had sorority halls in the dorms). Yes. At 3 am. Chickens! That was a FUN mess to be woken up to.

Then, there was the time they released about a dozen mice on the hall. I have a GREAT picture of my big sis holding up the last mouse by his tail. It took us several days to find him, so it was quite an accomplishment when we did.

Of course, we had done NOTHING to warrant this behavior. ;)

Okay, I'm going to put on my serious cap now and act like an advisor before I get myself into trouble.

ok, well I'm relieved to know it isn't exclusive to my chapter!

While this may sound like fun at the time, it can lead to legal problems. It is still a theft.

A Fraternity took the Composit of the Local I started with the only pictures of the Members.

I was down the weekend it happened and was mad as hell.

When I got home, I emailed the Chapter and their National about it. I plainly stated that I would personally prosecute them. If it was brought back there would be NO questions asked. We got it back but the glass was broken and the frame damaged.:mad: This was a irreplaceable item. So it Their Charter as it is the only one with all of the names of the Founders. That is why I have ours since the Old House was demolished.

I suggest very strongly that this stop as it could lead to other things that may turn out badly for Your Chapter in the future.

charters are irreplacible and composites can cost up to thousands of dollars-your sisters need to stop this now. let your advisors know-you can even do it anonymously if you want. another option would be to take them before the judicial board of your sorority. as a last resort, you could seek help from the greek advisor on your campus, but i would try to solve the problem internally first. good luck.

I would agree. Things can escalate quite quickly and get ugly.

I was at a party at the Alpha chapter of TKE at Illinois Wesleyan University in 1987. Some knuckleheads attempted to steal their charter during the party :eek:

Mayhem ensued and these clowns got a much deserved beat down.

Don't expect people to act rationally when you steal from them.

The funniest picture I've ever seen.....another chapters Alpha (sorry AGDLynn), my chapters Xi, and third chapters Delta on the roof of a fraternity house to spell out AXiD. We thought it was great....the other sororities were less than amused and demanded their letters back....hahaha!!

WHAT!!!:eek: :eek: ;)

I have strongly discourged my collegiates to take things because I know how quickly things can get out of hand.
I know that last year all the sorority composites were taken for a while and returned just before recruitment. No one was happy!

On a side note..Tirish, you know about the mold problem cause this summer when the school didn't turn on the air in the closed dorm....well the Alpha Gam Founder's pic was totally destroyed but thankfully the Charter was okay...someone WILL keep it over the summer this time.

The newest initiates presented a new fancy copy of the Founders to the chapter at Feast of Roses.:D

Ew, the pictures of that were so nasty ...

We used to steal stuff all the time and leave ransom letters. It was a great way to set up mixers. I remember one night I scaled a fence and climbed into the Phi Delta Theta house through a bathroom window. I let the rest of the girls in through the front door. We took their composite and left a ransom note for them to make us dinner. We did the same thing to Delta Tau Delta. Whenever we took something from the local fraternity on campus they would always come back and destroy us, lol. I remember when they came over to our sorority house and stole our microwave, our phones, saran wrapped the toliet (which one sister fell victim to, lol), and threw bags of shredded paper all over our lawn...that was fun to clean up! I don't ever remember anybody taking things too far, we were all just having fun!

Yeah, the fraternity just found out it is in our house and is incredibly mad. I think they're just not going to invite us to anything at all anymore, which is really unfortunate because I really like all of these guys. It's the same group of girls who keeps stealing stuff and I'm really fed up with it.

If the fraternity cuts them off from social things, that will be the best punishment they could get. It will make the rest of the sisters mad at them if they are getting deprived of their favorite fraternity men because of something dumb a half dozen people did.

Stealing composites...I understand that. That's done at Nebraska all the time, so no big deal. One sorority had like 78 composites from numerous chapters.

But charters? that's a little much.

You need to speak up and say that this is going too far.

It's one thing to pull a prank and take a composite for the night (returning it completely undamaged of course!)
BUT to steal things repeatedly is just plain stupid...Not worth the risk of the others trying to get back at you in a worse way....If this were my chapter, I would go to the advisors and let them know who was involved and what was going on.


It's all fun and games until someone gets hurt!

I can understand the anger over charters and composites. Of course if it's known what house took it and there is a "proceedure" for getting the item back, I would be less upset. IE: serenades, dinners, mixers, etc...

I remember one evening my senior year someone broke into our house and stole some of our trophies. Very old trophies that had been with the chapter (more or less) for almost 90 years, paddles given to us by a "famous" SK AI just the year before, etc... Just absolute priceless stuff! We had zero clue which house or individuals took them, and there's very little hope of our chapter seeing them again. There have been other items stolen years before I got there that we still see in old pictures. Yes, the stories then get passed down, but I have yet to talk to an alumna who thinks it's amusing.

If chapters would know who took their items and could get them back by some sort of mixer, dinner, etc... maybe it would be more amusing. Of course it would all be in the timing. Before recruitment when there are 800 other items that need to fall into place? Not a good time. After midterms to release stress? Better. The system that I dealt with though?? :mad:

I remember a few years ago when I was working with the Ga Tech Alpha Gam chapter, I heard that one day during that time, an older gentleman rang the doorbell and said that when he was a Sigma Nu pledge at the University of Wisconsin or some other chapter in the 40's or so, his pledgeclass sstole an Alpha Gamma Delta's chapter bronze nameplate plaque and he still had it!!!
He was truly sorry and just wanted to get it off of his conscience (sp) so he was returning it the Tech chapter cause it was the nearest. I don't know if they still have it or returned it to the rightful chapter.

Thank you all for your advice. I am relatively new to my chapter but I think I am going to discuss this issue with some senior members of my chapter, ones who have more influence than I do and who really understand the concequences that result from such immature behavior, and see if they will help me talk to the chapter about it. I think I might slip a note to our advisors too just to let them know what is going on.

We had this problem -- sororities stealing stuff. Alpha Xi Delta was particularly bad about this back in our colony days. It was understandable, we'd had a few guys 'captured' stealing their charter (they were returned to us after a reportedly horrific captivity in which they were led to believe their eyebrows were shaved and other torture implements were employed ;) ). Anyhow, we'd steal things from eachother, and they'd of course fork our yard, put TP in our trees, etc. They had taken some pretty big stuff just as in the OP.

Anyhow, some of our guys decided to put a stop to all of this because it was getting a little ridiculous. In the early morning hours, 3-4 of our guys dressed of course in black and camo, ski masks and all purchased some hamburger meat. They went to the Alpha Xi house. Now understand -- the old houses in that area are not built on a foundation, I forget what it's called, but you can crawl under the house -- it's sometimes scary down there, snakes, skunks, etc.. but they were some brave guys. So they crawled up under that house with their raw hamburger meat and began to apply it to various spots in the house... and of course, they left.

Needless to say, the house began to develop an 'odor' about it. At first, they thought that some of their girls might have slightly 'less than clean' bathroom habits -- this turned out not to be the case, and I'm sure they bathrooms and other rooms were cleaned thoroughly -- but to no avail. The stench continued to worsen.

Week 2 -- their advisor from HQ visits. Likes what's going on with the chapter, good everything *except* the house just smells dirty. The chapter gets into some trouble (don't know how serious), and the next thing you know, our Pres. is approached by their crying Pres. demanding a truce.. Of course one was granted.

-- So realize that what a few of your girls are doing to this fraternity may come back to haunt you in ways you never imagined. And yeah, what 33 said -- if these guys don't retaliate, they're pussies.

Pranks
 

We had our sweetheart double cross us once. She asked all of us to e-mail her with one good statement about each brother, b/c she had a surprise for the chapter. Well she, along with 7 members of their sorority, came to our house to help her as we were leaving for something, which left the house completely vacant. When we got back all the furniture was upside down and certain things were moved around or taken down from the wall. We didn't think anything of it, put the stuff back and retaliated with something little. Then came the big one, which didn't end well. They got our door combination, stole a composite and sent us all a pretty sexy picuture with the composite in the background. Our president pretended to be pissed, called their president to find out who did it and then we had a graduate brother call pretending to be a university police officer and said if it wasn't back by midnight it would be considred stolen and charges would be pressed. We got the composite back, but wanted to teach them a lesson. So we managed to get the combination to their suite (sororities don't have houses here) just in time for our Pig Dinner. While everyone was at the end of the year greek awards night a few pledges and brothers entered their suite, took all the things off their walls and hid them in the suite and set the head of the Pig we roasted on a table. They were PISSED! They had thought we stole all the stuff. If an alum or member of headquarters, which is only about an hour away, had come up and seen their charter missing they could've had their charter pulled by their headquarters. And b/c of the whole thing three members were put up for membership, but only suspended which resulted in two of them dis-affiliating from the sorority.

While I think pranks among fraternities and sororities are fun, just make sure there is a ransom note left or they get the items back in a timely manner. Our campus has had an amnesty day in the past in which all organizatoins were exempt from punishment if they returned the stolen items.

It can still lead to Trouble in the long run!

Use Judgement!

Pay sooner than later!:(

I stole a pledge paddle once, and that totally blew up in my face. But several weeks went by and the boys stopped caring, save for a few of them,

At any rate, I'm done stealing anything of interest from houses. Though, right now I have a cue ball from my little B's house, and they know and don't care - probably because they have extras since on my campus pool balls are popular to steal. ;) That and I spend a lot of time there anyway, lol.

Another fraternity stole our guest bathroom mirror during homecoming week, and they weren't even our partner (I guess they just felt like doing it??). In return, they found themselves missing a toaster. We got the mirror back pretty quickly after that because they were disappointed that they couldn't have toast anymore.

We just had a sorority antique our house while we were away for intitation.

The messed up part is...they called the cops on us because they thought we were going to retaliate. The cops came up and bitched our President out and told him that we would be responsible for anything that happened to their house, and they we were going to be reported to the University greek office monday morning....for absolutly nothing! We were the ones pranked, and we got in trouble for it.

Needless to say, the sorority involved is banned from the house and no more social functions will happen. Nor will the be invited to our phil.

could you please explain "antiquing"? the image in my mind is a bunch of girls rushing into your house, armed with louis the 16th commodes, priceless aubusson rugs and sheridan credenzas, replacing your furniture with priceless antiques.

Throwing flour over everything.

So thick it looked like snow outside.

heavens!! it must have taken quite some time to clean that up!!

Yeah, that's the icing on the cake for us being reported to the police...for something that hadn't even happened.

Wow that sounds pretty extreme. I'm glad my school doesn't have a tradition of doing that.

Anyway, everyone in my chapter that I've talked to seems to think that the fraternity is being a bunch of crybabies and it's difficult to tell whether they're being stubborn since our president offered the charter back in exchange for a small gift and they won't do it, or if our president is just being stupid by withholding the charter and having them ban all our girls from their house. I think we should give it back and try to reconcile before things get out of hand but it doesn't look like it's going to happen. It may have started in good fun but I really think we need to call it quits. I'm going to write to our advisor about it.

I don't know if they told them they have it, seems to me like it's all fun and games... if they are really pissed off about it.. (and therefore as someone said wusses) I say give it back... if they aren't going to be fun, why bother.


We took a composite from the ATOs at San Jose State once and required their president give our president a lap dance to get it back... it's all good, we kept the photo in good condition and all...

The only time we've ever stolen anything is during Sigma Chi's Derby Days. We're supposed to prank the guys for points. We took an Xbox and PS2. They were quite annoyed to say the least. You'd think guys who ask us to prank them wouldn't get so upset when we do.

One year we took their place along the "wall" they always sit on. I do believe they assign pledges times to sit there, but the actives sit there in between classes... it's kinda weird, but a cool tradition nonetheless.

that had to suck...my two roommates last year were soccer players so of course the senior soccer players decided to screw with them...and of course I got caught in the middle...cleanin all that flour up is a B!tch.

Hm, I've never heard of antiquing a house - I've only heard of antiquing people when they pass out somewhere other than their bed.

That is not only hilarious but smart of them. You know it too. Hah. Smart little hen house!

-Rudey

Might it be the lovely sorority on our campus who has "sunday funday" aka "night of wrecking everything greek at WVU"?