Editor’s Note: Due to wishes to remain anonymous, the students City on a Hill Press spoke to will be referred to as Resident A and B.
Hair loss, itchy skin, and rashes. These are a few of many symptoms reported by six students living on-campus at the Village, building C-5.
Residents first reported their symptoms on Oct. 10 to their residential assistant (RA) during a building meeting. Many were concerned these issues stemmed from the water quality in the building. The residents submitted a Cruz Fix-It ticket as well as a document of their symptoms, which they shared with the Environmental Health and Safety (EH&S) department.
Resident A said that another resident in C-5 moved out due to health concerns. They added that Village housing staff encouraged all C-5 residents to seek medical assistance between the inspections and the maintenance.
“[They] went to the health center and [were told] this is most likely a bacterial infection and gave [them] some medicated body wash. I haven’t been able to get to the health center because I’m busy, but I did talk to my doctors and they’re like, ‘Yeah, there’s not really much you can do besides get the water fixed,’” Resident A said. “Only two people had really, really bad health effects, like the [person] who went to the doctor and the [person] who moved out.”
EH&S inspected the building on Oct. 21, and Colleges, Housing and Educational Services (CHES) facilities did a separate inspection and maintenance on Oct. 24. Resident B expressed frustration with poor communication from CHES, EH&S, and the maintenance team.
“They didn’t tell us what was going on,” they said. “The most egregious part was that they came into the rooms without telling us and giving us 24 hours [notice].”
To clean the air vents, EH&S and CHES were required per the housing contract to give 24 hours advance notice before entering residents’ rooms. According to the sources City on a Hill Press (CHP) spoke to, the residents received no advance email or notice before the teams entered their rooms.
According to an email from the Village Housing staff to residents in C-5, the EH&S inspection reported “minor water damage and minor organic growth near usual water sources, bathrooms and kitchenette.” Residents in the building confirmed that these assessments seemed accurate to their experiences, but that the report downplayed the severity.
“The use of ‘minor’ may not be the correct word considering the baseboards in our bathrooms got pulled off,” Resident B said, referring to the university’s response to the discovery of mold. “We only currently have two out of three bathrooms working because there’s been a dehumidifier going in our bathroom since all that’s happened, which is a result of mold. And so for that to be in there constantly going, how minor was that?”
Steven Loveridge, the director of EH&S, confirmed in an email to CHP that EH&S did not test the water. Instead, they inspected the air quality, moisture levels, leaking pipes, HVAC operations, and checked for signs of pests.
“Past water sampling has been performed at outlets around campus and have been consistently under regulatory limits,” Loveridge wrote. “Based on this precedent, our initial focus was on investigating allergen sources.”
Resident B informed CHP that despite the inspections and subsequent maintenance, they are still having symptoms. Resident B said they are planning to get filters for the showers because they aren’t convinced it isn’t part of the issue.
On how the university could remedy this situation, Resident A asks that “they actually check the water coming out of the faucet and also just [be] open to hearing us out because I think that was missed … I think [the response] was a little too defensive, and it didn’t really feel like they were really caring about the students.”
