Mustard packets in urinals. Tampons stuck to locker room ceilings. Missing soap dispensers. Disappearing toilet paper. Blame it on devious licks, the TikTok trend where students across the country steal or vandalize school property. 

The trend still continues to happen at Emmaus High School, more than a month after the national craze went viral.

School administrators have locked down bathrooms, leaving students to walk across campus to find an open facility. Sometimes, backpacks are not permitted. Teachers say they have to spend time stopping students from disrupting the school day. 

Both students and staff are unhappy about the trend.

Greg Annoni, assistant principal for the senior class, said responding to the vandalism is time-consuming. The acts also take away from the time spent “interacting “with students in a positive manner.”

 “It also takes away from the building budget because now we have to spend money on repairs which takes away from things that would benefit students in other ways,” he said. “Students are only hurting themselves.”

This is affecting more than just the staff, it is affecting the students themselves too. 

Freshman Prince Scille said his personal hygiene has been affected.

 “They’ve made me less sanitary because people are taking the soap dispenser,” Scille said. “I have not washed my hands in three weeks.”

This trend has attracted a lot of negative feelings from students, parents, teachers, and custodians. 

Sophomore Anthony Roque said, “It’s just stupid as s#!t.”

“I think it’s ridiculous; I think that doing something destructive for likes doesn’t make sense,” Annoni said. “Destroying property that your students need to use doesn’t make sense,” Annoni said.

The big question is: How should the school punish students participating in the trend?

Harold Fairclough, head football coach, offered an interesting suggestion.

“The kids should come in with the custodians and clean it up because they don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes with the clean-up,” Fairclough said.

It may seem like a fair punishment, but what do the students think?

“They have to fix what they did with a two-week suspension and destruction charges,” Scille said.

There is a bright side to this trend. It has spawned an anti-trend called “angelic deeds” to battle devious licks. Angelic deeds are the idea of fixing things around the school that were damaged as a part of devious licks.

Freshman Alex Collins would like for “someone to leave a PS5 in the bathroom.”

Perhaps, students will pick up on this anti-trend, start respecting school  property, ultimately, and end this madness.