Patricia Scholle Headshot
Living in Wood Hall, Building A, for the past year has been nothing short of miserable.
The building has no accessible elevator. It does have a service elevator but only for University personnel. I reached out to housing and the Disability Resources Office on campus begging them to let me use the elevator. I had full accommodations from a doctor for another health concern. When I asked them to let me use the elevator, they told me I should move buildings. Instead of accommodating my disability, they told me to get my stuff and leave.
After much back-and-forth with housing, I was given three days to move to the second floor and was still unable to access the elevator to get to other parts of the building like the kitchen.
Shortly after this move, I injured my ankle and was in a walking boot for nearly three months. I reached out to housing about the elevator again because the only water fountain in the building is located on the fifth floor. I was referred to numerous people until eventually they stopped responding to my emails. Any time I needed water, I had to drag my injured foot up five flights of stairs.
Additionally, when the weather gets cold, the AC unit no longer produces cold air. Instead, it spits out 80 degree air to compensate for the outdoor cold. It doesn’t matter how cold it is outside, there is no good reason to have such hot air inside.
When I reached out to the housing about the heat, they showed up at my door within 10 minutes only to inform me there was nothing they could do.
The entire experience was awkward as I did not want multiple housing personnel inside my living space, and they gave me no warning that they were coming. I was informed that Wood A has a two pipe system, meaning it’s only able to put out hot air or cold air and not both. This means that the building is reliant on outside temperatures to decide if it will be hot or cold.
The air that was put out was so hot I was unable to sleep, and I had to shower frequently because of how much sweat was on me. When I expressed this to my unwelcome guests, they told me to open a window to let in some cold air. Shortly after, Wood A was broken into through an open window.
Every semester, students complain over the obscene living conditions the hot air produces. The only solution Housing has offered is to open a window. In a secluded building with a large road behind it, telling someone who lives on the ground level to open a window to be able to sleep at night is foolish and puts them in danger.
University Housing declined to comment on this matter.
It also feels like Maintenance struggles to care about students living in Wood A. Recently, inside one of the rooms in my suite there was a rodent. When my suitemates reached out to Maintenance, they showed up two hours later and gave them a mouse trap. My suitemates went to sleep hoping the trap would catch it. This was one of two rodents that I know of found inside Wood A in the last two weeks.
Living conditions inside Wood A are unsuitable. It is inaccessible to anyone living with a disability, and the inside of the building is miserably hot. Reaching out for help, in my experience, does nothing.
The University has made progress towards improving Wood Hall by adding lighting around the building recently. The road walking up to the building was pitch black at night, leaving residents walking home completely unable to see other people and objects on the road. The area is now well lit and easy to see at night.
Wood A is just one small example of what it is like to live on campus. University Housing needs to do better to meet the needs of students, who pay a lot of money to be here. There are a lot of old residence halls on campus that do not meet a basic standard of living and need to be changed.
Housing needs to be more accommodating to students and should allow us use of the elevator already located in the building. The heating and air conditioning units can be fixed to put out both hot and cold air as needed by the residents. More sanitary measures to prevent rodents need to be implemented. Small steps in the right direction have been made, but Wood A residents deserve better.