Early last Monday morning, three Public Safety officers entered Out House uninvited. They knocked on several bedroom doors before taking down the names and numbers of two residents Galen Degraf ’09 and Isaac Levy ’09. Why Public Safety came into Out House in the wee hours of a school day is the story of an old, playful grudge between Out House, and their neighbors across High Street, German Haus.

The events began the night before when several members of Out House covered the porch and front door of German Haus with applesauce, rekindling a prank war that has existed for years.

German Haus held a meeting later that night and decided to leave a plate of several sausages in the shape of a smiley face taped to Out House’s front door.

In response, Out House’s Eric Bissel ’10, stripped and chased celebrating German Hausmembers into the street.

“That’s pretty much Out House’s default, get naked,” Degraf explained.

At that point, Degraf and Levy sought revenge later that night. They filled eight garbage bags with dead leaves and planned on dumping the leaves against their door, so that when German Haus residents opened their door, leaves would pour inside. Later that night at around 2 a.m. they began to bring the bags over to German Haus’s porch.

Unfortunately for Out House several members of German Haus saw them and started yelling at them.

“They saw garbage bags and assumed garbage I guess,” Degraff said. “So we decided to wait until later, so we wouldn’t get caught again.”

According to Wilkerson, at around 4 a.m. Public Safety officers came in the German Haus to tell them that one of the member’s cars had been covered in ranch dressing.

“He had to take his car to a car wash at, like, four in the morning,” Wilkerson said.

German Haus assumed that this was Out House’s retaliation, but Degraf denies it,

“That was clearly malicious,” he said. “We just want to have fun.”

Later that night, unaware of the ranch dressing incident, Degraf and Levy resumed their work of piling the leaves on German House’s porch. Meanwhile, one resident of German Haus Seth Halpern ’09 was still awake, however, and called Public Safety, presumably because of the ranch dressing incident that had happened less than an hour ago.

Degraf and Levy finished and, happy with their work, returned to their room to watch.

“It was amazing,” Degraf said. “[The leaves were] up to five feet high, and we stuck a hay bail on the porch so they would know it was us.”

Soon Public Safety arrived, and as previously stated, entered Out House and recorded the perpetrators’ names.

Degraf expressed concern over German Haus’s actions.

“They started [the pranks], we retaliated, and they gave up and called PSafe,” Degraf said. “If you call PSafe, it’s like you can’t handle it.”

However, German Haus remains optimistic that the pranks will continue throughout the year.

“It’s definitely going to keep going,” Wilkerson said. “The ball’s in our court now. We’ll get them back.”