Students in the North Campus Communities suspect that there is mold in their dorm rooms.
Housing has denied any claims that there is black mold or asbestos in the dorms, but there was a spike in sickness with students staying in the NCCs last semester, according to one resident, Abby Laurent.
Laurent said that for most of the fall semester she was sick, and it continued to get worse until it progressed into strep throat and hives appeared on her body.
“That was when I was spending the most time in my room because I was miserably sick and it just wasn’t going away,” Laurent said.
After a month, Laurent started spending less time at her dorm.
“Pretty much anytime I left my dorm for an extended period of time my hives would mostly go away,” Laurent said. “The more time I spent in my dorm the worse it got and the worse my sore throat got.”
At that point, Laurent would only go to her dorm to sleep but would spend most of her day on campus.
When she left for fall break, she no longer felt sick.
Her roommate suspected that there was mold or asbestos in the vent because of a black coloration around the edges of it. The ceiling around it was dripping water and had been for a while.
“We looked at the ceiling and the paint was starting to bloat and come off and rot,” Laurent said.
According to Laurent, when they talked to the resident director of the NCCs, Claire Gorham, she told them that there was mildew behind the walls of their shower but that would not be fixed until the summer.
John Kosh, the Director of Business Development, Marketing and Communications for housing, stated that there was a resident concern for mold, but none had been found.
“Our facilities are maintained regularly to meet health and safety standards, and any potential hazards would be addressed promptly and transparently,” Kosh wrote in an email to the Argonaut.
Laurent and her roommate submitted a service request to have the vent checked.
“When maintenance came in to look at the vent, they hadn’t actually looked at the vent, but they looked at the shower,” Laurent said.
She said that she had seen no other inspection besides the one of their shower.
Laurent was put into the NCCs as overflow housing because of her late registration in August.
“It severely impacted mine and my roommate’s mental and physical health and getting out of there was the best thing that has happened to me.”