Dorm maintenance frustrates students

From outside their grand stone walls, the buildings of the West Campus Gothic Wonderland appear unshakable.

In reality, however, they are not always as sturdy as they seem-and this semester, residents of Craven Quadrangle have been consistently reminded of structural problems.

Two major incidents involving faulty plumbing occurred in Craven within a month.

The morning of Sept. 8, a clogged pipe in a urinal exploded, flooding the third-floor bathroom of House R and spreading its damage to residents below.

"There was water cascading out of the bathroom," said third-floor resident and senior David Schloss. Water came through his door and collected on the floor, but his room suffered from no significant damages.

Second-floor resident and senior Yuval Patel was not so fortunate. Because of the flood, parts of Patel's ceiling collapsed, and his mattress was ruined.

Soon after, in the early morning hours of Oct. 6, a marble partition in the basement bathroom of House VO collapsed.

"It was cracked all over the floor," sophomore Cleland Robertson said. "The door was blown clear. The toilet seat was completely dismantled."

Residence Life and Housing Services officials have previously told The Chronicle that renovations to West Campus residence halls meant to remedy structural defects and generally upgrade facilities are projected to continue in summer 2006 with changes to Crowell Quadrangle. Renovations to Kilgo Quadrangle were completed in 2004.

In the meantime, smaller-scale problems continue to plague several West Campus facilities-and Joe Gonzalez, associate dean of residential life, said the maintenance staff has done its best to deal with the issues. Routine inspections are performed to check for damaged facilities, but the staff is unable to prevent all incidents.

"Unfortunately, some things can't be caught until they are actually broken," Gonzalez said. "You can't always anticipate where a problem will occur."

Gonzalez said staff members are immediately sent to sites of emergency incidents. "Our immediate response is to stop the problem," he said. "Our system works well for us."

Some students said they appreciate RLHS' speedy reactions. Patel said that after the pipe in House R burst, the maintenance staff arrived very quickly, turned the water off and observed the damages the flood caused to his room and belongings. He received a new mattress, a laundry card to clean what had been drenched and a reimbursement for his dry cleaning bill.

But disturbances and defects are still irritating to students who must deal with them on a daily basis.

"The administration's response was really swift, but the problem remains that renovating dorms has become a secondary point," said Patel. "I hope they understand that these random occurrences are not random because the dorms are very old."

Patel noted that maintenance issues often disrupt students' daily routines. "You want to go through a normal day," he said, adding that he was forced to skip his classes Sept. 8. "It's something you don't want to deal with."

According to Gonzalez, students can help prevent facilities' problems from burgeoning in the future. He noted that students should not assume that RLHS is aware of all of the small defects in the dorms; they should point them out before they escalate into larger occurrences.

Patel said he had been informing RLHS about the problems in his dorm since the beginning of the school year, but other students may not take such an active role.

Resident of Crowell EE and sophomore Tomas Barreto described a substantial leak from a urinal that flooded his bathroom, but he said he was unaware of any students contacting RLHS. He said he assumed the housekeeping staff would tackle the matter.

Students also said they are not always aware of the structural wear and tear concealed behind dormitory walls that later lead to visible cracks, bursts or other problems.

"It's difficult to report what you can't see," Schloss said.

Schloss added, however, that the recent episodes may have alerted students of the need to be more aware of their facilities. "I think now we're constantly on the lookout for things like that," he said.