Most people who live or have lived in campus housing are well aware of the multitude of ongoing problems with campus housing. With the construction for a new residence hall, a new problem has surfaced – the maintenance issues in the dorm halls and apartments are not being attended to with the same efficiency as in previous years.
We have heard plenty of complaints of things wrong, not only in the residence halls and apartments, but in buildings across campus. Everything from the bathrooms not working, ceiling leaks and stains on the floors. How can we give time and money to a brand new building when we haven’t even fixed the things that are broken now?
To start, the residence halls come with an age-old complaint – the bathrooms, the laundry rooms, the elevators, and the nasty stench in Pierce Hall. In the shared laundry rooms, at least one of the machines is usually out of order, if not more. Oh the elevators, which are so nice if you are on the upper floors in Trigg or Killingsworth – or are they? The one is Killingsworth is known for being so slow that most people take the stairs because it ends up being faster. The ones in Trigg are known for near constant maintenance problems.
The stench in Pierce is an awful combination of rotting food, bodily fluids, and over-used Axe and body sprays attempting to cover it up. We don’t know how the smell continues to linger and never go away, but it never fails to greet you when you walk through the doors.
Around campus, the problems persists. One of the men’s bathrooms in the Fain Fine Arts building still only has one working toilet. Anytime it rains, the glass ceiling area in Fain will have buckets all over to catch all the water coming in through the cracks.
What is going to be done about this? We can’t tell you, but what we agree that these things need to be fixed and updated before they continue using their time and money to make new buildings.
It’s unreasonable to expect maintenance to fix all the problems around campus overnight. However, don’t start new massive projects on campus without a plan to ensure the maintenance and quality of existing structures, especially the place where the student body lives.
Lesson is, take care of the things you already have before you go out and buy new things.
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