Several students who were supposed to live in the Fairways apartments have been forced to live in various other campus housing due to a massive water leak which occurred in late July.
A leak starting in Andrews Hall 306 rapidly spread throughout the building and destroyed most of the apartments on that side of the complex. Residents who chose this apartment as their home for this semester were displaced due to the damage. As students await to hear when their originally picked rooms will be ready, ResLife Director, Quentin Brachenridge states, “I still don’t have a full timeline currently . That is still to be determined.”
Brackenridge added, “After assessing the area we noticed there was a leak from the toilet in one of the apartments that then caused a significant amount of water.”
When the flooding occurred over the summer there were two students living in one of the affected apartments. Senior Jace Weileman said “I was off campus working at the time and received a call that my apartment was flooding. I was pretty far away at the time so I hurried back and when I got back my room had massive pools of water in it surrounding all of my electronics. The ceilings were caving in and the walls had bubbles in them full of water. In total my roommates and I had $600 in damages to our own personal property.”
Students on The Hill wait three years for the opportunity to live in the Fairways Apartments, so this news is especially disappointing for Senior Mathew Fetty “It is definitely not what I was hoping for. It really stinks having all of your friends living together at the apartments and you were supposed to be with them and you just can’t be. I’m just stuck in Skipps until they get it done and I’m not sure when that will happen.”
Students affected by this issue were notified on the 1st of august, seven days after the incident, and informed of what had occurred. Junior Ethan Sisk spoke about the displacement process, “When they told us that the flooding had happened, I was pretty disappointed, but I understood these things can happen, and was happy that at least the ResLife team was responsive and got me into a Portier room with my roommate.”
Brackenridge addressed the timely concern, “We want to do it the right way and sometimes doing it the right way might take a little longer but it is our goal to get those students in there as soon as those apartments are ready.”
Any complaints regarding on-campus student housing can be submitted to [email protected].
