Online maintenance request system still down; problems resolved by Sunday night
When overnight temperatures dropped into the 30s this weekend, some students living on campus went without heat in their rooms, and others dealt with a lack of heated water.
Meanwhile, University Housing’s FIXX Online maintenance request service has been and remains out of order.
Attempts to reach housing facilities management representatives were unsuccessful Monday afternoon.
Residents of Rutledge College on the Horseshoe reported having no hot water over the weekend and said they have had ongoing issues with air temperature in their apartments.
Students living in Capstone House said they were without hot water this weekend, and students in other residence halls, including Bates West, said they have had problems with heating in their dorms since returning for the spring semester.
“I don’t even remember it ever being warm in my room since I got back from winter break,” said Hayley Dwyer, a first-year management and marketing student living in Bates West. “My thermostat says that it’s 85 degrees in my dorm, but it’s definitely not. [The heat] is cranked up all the way, and I still sleep in sweatpants and a hoodie every night.”
Rutledge residents said their hot water was restored by the end of the weekend, but they expressed concern over the communication channels for maintenance requests.
With the FIXX website currently inoperable, students said they could only call and leave messages with the automated FIXX answering service and went through their resident mentor to have the problem resolved.
First-year pharmacy student Amy Yanicak’s Rutledge apartment was without both heat and heated water this weekend, though both issues were resolved by Sunday night.
“Once the maintenance people find out that there is an issue, they usually are on top of it really quickly,” Yanicak said. “But I think the system that informs them of what’s going on doesn’t work well enough sometimes. And I understand they can’t be on call 24/7, but for emergencies there should be a way.”
The Horseshoe residence halls are among the oldest on campus, and they’re also the most expensive. Housing fees for Rutledge are $3,500 per semester.
“In an apartment complex, if we went without those amenities for a weekend, they would have to reimburse us. But here we just deal with problems and they fix them eventually, but we’re still paying the same amount,” Yanicak said.
Yanicak’s roommate Katie Pennington, a second-year pharmacy student, said students who choose to live in older buildings like Rutledge do so knowing they may be more prone to need repairs.
“I put up with it just for the proximity and the scenery (of the Horseshoe),” Pennington said. “It’s easy to criticize, but we all agree that we love living here, despite all of it. It’s worth it to me.”