Residence hall to be tested, cleaned for second time next week
Weeks after USC got word of mold growing in residents’ rooms, Sims College is set to get another round of cleaning and testing.
Sixteen students were displaced from the residence hall earlier this month after USC received reports of mold Sept. 14, according to Wes Hickman, the university’s spokesman.
That Friday, several students called Housing to complain, Hickman said. Facilities inspected and cleaned surfaces in all 117 rooms of the residence hall that day and through the following Monday, and an outside testing service searched for traces of spores in the air.
That process will repeat “in the next week or so,” Hickman said. The first round of tests cost USC about $2,500, he said.
Those first tests found that three rooms in the building needed more attention, and their six residents were relocated, Hickman said, scattering to open rooms across campus. Another 10 have so far asked to move because of respiratory illnesses or a sensitivity to the mold.
The university offered to clean students’ clothes or reimburse them for anything that wasn’t salvageable, Hickman said. How much that process cost wasn’t clear Thursday evening.
The problem, Hickman said, stemmed from deteriorating insulation in a few rooms’ closets. The building is cooled with chilled water, and pipes carrying it run through one closet in each of the buildings’ suites.
That allowed condensation to form, which, combined with humidity from heavy rains in late August and early September, made the closets conducive to growth.
USC hasn’t checked other buildings in the Women’s Quad, and Hickman said doing so wasn’t necessary since Housing hasn’t received reports of issues in those buildings. Kirsten Kennedy, the executive director of Housing, was out of town Thursday and wasn’t available to answer questions about the potential for issues in other dorms.
Housing has responded to requests from students who said they had mold growing in their rooms in other buildings this semester, Hickman said, but those proved not to be an issue — they were usually dirt or mildew.
“I’m not aware that it’s happening anywhere else,” Hickman said. “But if a student does see something that he or she might think is suspicious or that might be some kind of substance, they should let someone know.”