Jill McCarter
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Between the leaking ceilings, mice, clogged sinks and graffiti-ridden walls, Ross Hall is starting to look like Ross Hell for some student residents.
“There’s an abundance of creatures living here, because every time I’m alone in my room, all I can hear is the squeaking,” freshman Lauren Batson said. “Our buildings are just falling apart.”
Many student residents have voiced their complaints regarding the state of Ross Hall.
Don Borden, maintenance system coordinator and liaison between maintenance and residential halls, said that most of the problems have simple solutions, but getting to the problem requires students to inform them of the troubles as they arise.
“We really rely on students to let us know when there are problems,” Borden said. “It’s important that when students see these problems that they tell their resident assistants or the front desk and let them know what they saw.”
Some of the problems, like the leaking ceilings and clogged sinks, are things that come and go almost every year.
Others, like the mice, are more rare.
“It’s definitely been quite a while since there have been mice in the buildings,” Gerald Carlson, director of maintenance, said.
Borden went on to say that it’s very unusual for mice to be on the third floor. The problem, he said, could lie with the students.
“The way a room is kept can contribute to the issue,” Borden said. “If there are a lot of things for them to tear up and eat, they are going to find a way to get in there.”
Leaking ceilings have contributed to the complaints from some students, and the problem is something that former Ross Hall staff adviser Katie Corson had to deal with when she was an employee.
“The ceilings had to be fixed during a break when things could really be looked at and things could be moved so that it wouldn’t disturb the normal flow of things,” Corson said.
While it may be a persistent problem, students like Batson are still frustrated with the issue.
“Every time I walk by, there’s a brown liquid just dripping down from the ceiling and I don’t know what it is,” Batson said. “It’s just nasty.”
Borden and Carlson said that the weather has contributed to the increase in leaking.
“With the freezing and melting weather that we’ve had, it’s hard to get up there and find the root of the problem,” Carlson said.
Borden said he agreed with Carlson’s thoughts.
“We have to wait for warmer weather so that we can fix anything because right now, because everything is so wet and so cold, there’s just not a very easy way to fix things,” Borden said.
Corson said these issues are things that student residents have always dealt with.
“It’s always something,” Corson said. “One year, it was exit signs, one year it was graffiti and one year it was food everywhere.”
Some of the problems can be traced back to students’ responsibility in taking care of the place in which they live.
“Some people will choose to disrespect the places in which they live. It’s a crappy thing to deal with, it’s annoying to live around and I’m sure it’s an even worse thing to clean up,” Corson said.
“You just have to understand that it’s something that is going to happen and you have to just find a way to deal with it.”
Preventing some of the issues can really just boil down to students maintaining their own spaces.
“Keep your room clean. Don’t keep things on the floor. Just basic things,” Borden said.
Both Borden and Carlson emphasized the importance of letting someone know as soon as a problem arises.
“Slow sinks are easier to fix than stopped sinks,” Borden said. “And we don’t know to fix it if no one tells us that it’s broken.”
He said the ceilings should be fixed during Spring Break, but the graffiti won’t be cleaned up until the end of the year.
Corson said that students often get bad views of maintenance and place blame where it is not needed.
“I feel like it’s difficult to attribute the blame and to decide who did what. No one knows where the blame should be,” Corson said. “It can become a bad situation when maintenance does a fair share of doing their jobs without throwing a fit and students get jaded views of them.”
Between the leaking ceilings, mice, clogged sinks and graffiti-ridden walls, Ross Hall is starting to look like Ross Hell for some student residents.
“There’s an abundance of creatures living here, because every time I’m alone in my room, all I can hear is the squeaking,” freshman Lauren Batson said. “Our buildings are just falling apart.”
Many student residents have voiced their complaints regarding the state of Ross Hall.
Don Borden, maintenance system coordinator and liaison between maintenance and residential halls, said that most of the problems have simple solutions, but getting to the problem requires students to inform them of the troubles as they arise.
“We really rely on students to let us know when there are problems,” Borden said. “It’s important that when students see these problems that they tell their resident assistants or the front desk and let them know what they saw.”
Some of the problems, like the leaking ceilings and clogged sinks, are things that come and go almost every year.
Others, like the mice, are more rare.
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