Let me preface this by saying I am not a proponent of college students living in hotels or hospitals. In fact, I’ve been known to criticize the new dorms for being way too sterile and way too ritzy-any time you walk into a room and are afraid to spill your beer or bump something against the wall, you’ve stepped beyond the realm of “collegiate” and entered into the realm of “pretentious upper class.”
That being said, something really has to be done about the old dorms. I love them, I embrace everything that they stand for, but the condition in which they currently reside is absolutely disgusting. And it’s not that they’re worn, it’s not because of the marks on the walls or the chipping paint or the tile floors, that I’m saying this. No, I’m not complaining because I’m jealous of your white walls, Liggett-Koenig.
I’m complaining because in the interest of building your spectacularly white-walled rooms and furnishing them with leather couches and plasma TVs, basic maintenance on the old dorms has been foregone. I’m complaining because instead of spending money replacing mold-infested air conditioning systems or even simply adequately cleaning out existing units, the rationalization seems to have been made that the old dorms will be torn down soon enough so fixing them up at all would be a waste of money.
Personally, I’d argue that the ability to breathe is, in fact, a worthy cause. Just a thought.
It’s possible that I’m biased by the chronic bronchitis that I suddenly developed upon moving into Hitzeman. Maybe I am jealous of the new dorms’ new furniture, what with the mysterious stains on our couch and our missing coffee table. I won’t deny it.
But here’s what I know: This morning I went through three entire cleaning wipes, all turned completely black in the end, trying to get rid of the mold and dirt stubbornly clinging to my window frame (please note, this was not my first attempt). I know that when my suitemates and I moved into our suite, two of the doors would not open because they had swollen shut, and there was humidity literally dripping from the walls-humidity that returns when our dehumidifier is shut off. I know not to look up in the shower, because the green spatter of mold across the ceiling is not what one would call pleasant to behold. And finally, I know Gene the Maintenance Man very, very well, as he took apart and cleaned one specific AC unit four different times, with the only result being that now we have lemon-scented mold wafting out of it. We’re still waiting on the results of our air-quality tests.
You know, maybe I’m being melodramatic, but when six people smell mold and two develop breathing problems, I think it’s safe to say that we’re not making it up. There is a problem. The extent of that problem leads me to believe that it isn’t just contained to our rooms, and that there must be other students on campus living in similar conditions. If that’s true, and if it’s also true that the only choice is between living in a hospital and being hospitalized, I think most will opt for the former.
But maybe, just maybe, there’s a happy medium. Maybe instead of investing millions of dollars on new dormitories, we could just revamp the old ones a little bit. Wouldn’t it be worth it to save the (obviously) superior setup? I mean, have you seen the size of our common rooms? Do you not envy our balconies? Honestly, you should. Old suites are (or at least, could be) pretty sweet.
More importantly, old dorms have the thirty years of wear and tear that one expects when imagining a college dorm, the whole vintage-college-you-should-throw-a-party-here kind of aesthetic. As we tell prospective students, they’re “traditional.”
I’m a big fan of tradition. I’m just not a fan of hospitals, in any sense. You know?
Sara is a sophomore in Arts & Sciences. She can be reached via e-mail at saremedi@artsci.wustl.edu.