Three long months later
After almost three months of construction, the work is finally done in the College West Residence. After being woken up at 7 a.m. every morning (after staying up late trying to study), having no water for the third time since I’ve moved in, and being constantly unable to stay in my dorm until construction ended around 4:30 p.m. everyday, I’m more than happy that it’s over – but still not satisfied.
The students who live in the residences were informed of having construction until mid-October. But we were not informed that it’d go on until late November, and I find that very inconsiderate.
While construction was going on through the day the noise level was so high one could not sleep, study, or do anything without getting a pounding headache. Not having any water some days was extremely aggravating, especially because we were given very little notice about two of the shut downs.
When I got the little letter in my mailbox telling me they were going to take away our garbage bag privileges because we weren’t putting our garbage bags in the bins it finally tripped the last of my patience. From 7 a.m. – 5 p.m., if you needed to put your garbage in the bin you had to go through the construction workers. How many people are going to really try and put it in the bin when it’s not safe to do so? And no – we can’t have the garbage stinking up our dorms till after 5. Do you have your garbage just sitting in your hallway for hours and then put it outside? No. You don’t. It’s unsanitary.
So instead of threatening to take away our garbage bag privileges why didn’t they make it safer for students to put away their garbage?
I didn’t pay over $2,000 this semester so that I could store my belongings for a good portion of the day in a room that I can’t even use. I don’t think that’s right. Just because we live in an older building that needed construction doesn’t give you the right to charge us full price for something we’re not getting the full benefits of. When I had asked one of the residence staff at the South Tower they simply told me they had nothing to do with the construction and they didn’t know when it was going to end.
You are our landlords. It’s your responsibility to notify your tenants of what they’re moving into and when the things that disrupt them are going to be over. Sure, you have no control over the construction being done. That’s the university’s doing. But you, our landlords, never informed us it would go on longer. And the notices we received regarding water shut-offs were extremely short. How would you like waking up one day to a sign on your door saying “no water due to maintenance from 8:30 a.m. – 4 p.m.”?
I would really like to see some of our money refunded to us. Every single person in College West should get at least his or her initial damage deposit fee back. Construction may not be under your control but the way you handled the situation was. And you failed terribly in informing students living in residence and making it easier for them to live there.
I don’t think our treatment is fair in the slightest. Just because those of us who live in College West pay less and live in a rougher building does not mean we should be treated differently than the students who live in other residences on campus.
I’d like to see a refund of some of the money we spent to every College West resident.
If we paid full price for our rooms, we shouldn’t have to be forced out of our rooms most of the time. We want to see something done about this, and not just a letter of apology.
Megan Narsing
Contributor