There is a descending smear of strawberry sauce on the front doors of the Graduate House at 604 S. State St., mixed with something that looks like chocolate. Or maybe black beans.

The former fraternity house, cleaned and repaired since Beta Theta Pi was officially kicked off campus last spring, started housing graduate students this year. But the house's current tenants still get nostalgic visitors, and not all of them are pleasant.

"Every once in a while we see someone peeking through the (mail slot)," said first-year Law School student Grace Natale, who thinks the Peeping Toms - and possible gooey food throwers - may be ex-occupants, but it's not the first time it's happened. The perpetuators could simply be hard-partying guests of their neighbors: The house is on the same street as Alpha Delta Phi, Sigma Phi Epsilon, Chi Psi and Phi Kappa Psi.

"The noise is unbelievable on Saturdays," Natale said. "Some of the girls (in the house) frequently call the police."

The lifestyle of the graduate students who live in the house is a far cry from fraternity life. There are 10 people listed on the front door, but Natale said she is unsure how many people actually live at the house. Although the advertisements for Graduate House say that its 30 available rooms are part of "a cooperative environment," this isn't exactly co-op living. Natale said the tenants and the house are quiet overall.

"I don't even know who the guys are that live here," she said. She's friends with her next-room neighbor and another woman in the house, both second-year law students. "We walk to the gym together."

The second floor, where Natale lives, is all female. The wide central staircase opens up like wings into the third floor, which is all-male; the fourth is designated as co-ed.

But many of the rooms - even what must have been choice lofts or singles at some point - are empty, and you can look through holes where the doorknobs should be. The bare rooms have to-do lists taped to the doors: paint the walls, fix the carpet.

Natale said she decided to live in the house this summer, after deciding to attend law school at the University relatively late. Based in New York, she didn't want to fly out to look at apartments, and the Graduate House sounded like a convenient option - and cheap, too. She pays $530 in rent a month for her eight-month lease, including utilities, however questionable in reliability.

"(The landlords) promised Internet but we don't actually have it yet," she added. Some attempts have been made to fix the wireless situation. On Monday, fix-it guys paid the house a visit. The repairmen seemed to be the only people around, despite some acoustic guitar sounds coming from behind a closed door.

The kitchen, save for its massive industrial refrigerators, goes mostly unused.

"One person might cook, just to boil water," Natale said, half-jokingly. "I wouldn't trust this place. There used to be cockroaches (when we moved in)."

It's almost unnerving to walk through what used to be known as a warren of undergraduate debauchery - the house is too clean, too silent for a place once known for its parties. Beta's national organization disbanded the Michigan chapter last spring after photos of Beta members binge drinking surfaced in 2005 and the fraternity continued to violate alcohol policies.

But those stories are left to live in the walls, with any other vestiges of Beta Theta Pi. There are plaques all over the house, brass plates noting alumni-funded card rooms, tributes to former members by their brothers. But there are more personal touches, too, like in Natale's room: In her closet, Sharpied onto the cement wall by a member of the last official class, it reads "???. The Lambda Chapter of Beta Theta Pi. 1845-2007."