# University residences to keep a spare roll in sight

> A paper from the School of Continuous Improvement and the School of Emergent Priorities reports that a household's toilet roll is replaced no more slowly when more residents are home, and University residences will now count spares.

Households with a spare roll to hand did not wait on one another. That is the finding of a replication published today by the School of Continuous Improvement and the School of Emergent Priorities, and it has already been put to work in the arrangement of the University's residences.

The study fitted 38 households, from share houses to multigenerational homes, with a small sensor above the bathroom roll for a season. It asked whether having more people at home slowed the arrival of a fresh one, as an earlier University study had found for a smoke alarm's chirp. The team translated the quiet logistics of a household into a season of timed observation, with a presence record drawn from residents' phones and a printed note on the cupboard door in alternate weeks.

> The households who let a sensor sit above their bathroom roll for a season deserve more thanks than a paper can carry.
>
> --- Dr Bram Ntuli, Lecturer and Convenor of Improvement Grand Rounds

Improvement Grand Rounds, which Dr Ntuli convenes, has since resolved that every University-operated residence will keep a spare roll in view in its bathroom cupboard. The cupboard will be counted at each quarterly inspection and the result entered on the residence's Chirp Response Protocol record. Dr Torun Ezeigwe, Senior Lecturer and Director of the Master of Applied Measurement, described the arrangement as "a sensible place to begin", and Dr Iben Chikere, Lecturer in the School of Emergent Priorities, said she was glad to see an earlier question "given a second hearing".

The University regards the result as a welcome addition to its account of how a home keeps itself supplied. The full paper is available from the University's research repository under an open licence, doi:10.5555/slop.xyqh0t.