Laundry floods in Morris Hall The Xavierite
For the past few months in Morris Hall, there have allegedly been major plumbing issues reported by students.
Residents have expressed that several plumbing issues reported have been neglected by facilities and in some cases they never received a response at all.
The Xavierite Editorial Board recently came together to discuss the maintenance issues in Morris Hall over the span of the past few months and some solutions to these problems.
- Inability to do Laundry on a Normal Basis
One complaint by students included not being able to do laundry late at night because the number of washers/dryers varies every night. Most residents don’t have the time to wait through a long line to wash their clothes so they have been going to other floors to finish doing their laundry.
Some of the washers in the hall haven’t been working due to constant flooding issues. Because of this, students lose money by having to rewash clothes that are drenched causing them to have to purchase more laundry pods. There is limited access to having dry clothes due to the washer floodings.
If the washers don’t get fixed, students “might be forced to pay for their laundry off campus, which is a huge inconvenience with busy college schedules. It also does not help the price of housing for the dorm itself,” explained a member of the board.
Residence halls are supposed to have a “laundry included” service. Recently, though, it has not been so. Students rely on this service and it is not fair to them to not have it available when it was previously promised to them by residence life.
- Shower Leaks
Another and one of the biggest complaints reported was the leaks in the showers.
“Students are finding that from the floor above them, the water is leaking from the showers. In this case, when mainlanders get their request, they are told that they have to go a few days without using the restroom in their dorm,” shared one board member. It can be uncomfortable to ask a suitemate or another dorm to use their restroom.
Students need to be able to properly use showers, “it’s an issue of basic sanitary needs,” said another member. Hygiene issues can occur if showers are unavailable including; infections, acne, odor, rashes, and more.
“Last semester, when my suitemate’s shower was leaking into the ceiling of the residence below us, we were not told by maintenance. We were actually told by the residents below us that maintenance addressed us to tell us to not use our showers.”
- Drain Backups: Toilets Unavailable
“With the high cost of everything, a bathroom is one of the most basic necessities that should be guaranteed,” shared one board member. This also goes for the other issues at hand.
There has recently been an issue where residents have been flushing unflushable products into their toilets. Some items included tampons and flushable wipes. Although this is the fault of residents, it can cause problems for other residents’ plumbing even when they did not cause the problem.
Morris Hall is the only residence hall that does not have a first floor restroom in their hall. They do have access to the Starbucks restroom, however, it is not open 24/7 which could cause issues if someone needs to use the bathroom late at night.
If students are unable to use their restrooms, they will have to go to someone else’s, if they are unable to do so they would need to walk all the way to Warde Academic Center (WAC) to use the bathroom.
Facilities need to find a way to respond to maintenance requests faster and reach out to students, especially if multiple are affected. Service requests need to be monitored regularly.
Some things the board agreed needs to be considered is; hiring more faculty due to high complaints, reorganizing the current complaint system so that resident complaints are properly dealt with instead of ignored, get better at communicating with residents, and lastly, understanding how plumbing issues can cause significant problems for SXU residents.
All in all, facilities need to work harder to make sure residents are receiving the basic necessities they paid for.