Seminary Street apartment building.
SAM CARAVANA / THE DEPAUW
For the past three weeks, students living in the Seminary Street apartments have been trudging into their rooms, hoping to thaw out from the brutal weather with a hot shower, only to find that the water is as cold as the icy tundra they’ve just come from.
“There will be anywhere from half a day to two days at a time when we don’t have hot water,” junior Rachel Stewart said.
Junior Jane Park said the maintenance staff looked at the problem one night two weeks ago, but couldn’t figure out what was wrong. The next morning when she tried to take a shower, it was still cold.
“What they told me is that they think it might be a pipe freezing and they just haven’t caught it freezing yet,” junior Erin Crouse said. “In their defense, I don’t think there’s much to do until they can figure out why [this is happening].”
Facilities Management could not be reached for comment.
Students in the Seminary Street apartments are finding that their daily schedules are interrupted because they must work their day around when there will be hot water in the showers.
“I am frustrated with it because I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a hot shower,” Stewart said. “We are all very busy and working our schedules around when we can shower with hot water is inconvenient. Also, we cook a lot in our apartment and you can't do dishes with cold water.”
Park said the hot water availability is sporadic, and because of this she never knows when she will have the opportunity to take a hot shower.
“It's frustrating because you never know when there is going to be hot water or not, and when there isn't any hot water, how long there won't be hot water, so taking a shower for me is like playing a game,” she said.
Stewart said Facilities Management doesn’t have anyone answering the phones on weekends. Because of this, there have been entire weekends when the building will have ice-cold water.
She believes the problem exists only in the Seminary Street apartments, as she has not heard of hot water problems in any other building on campus.
“I haven't heard anyone else talk about it,” she said. “Once when we didn't have hot water and I needed to shower I went over to Alpha Chi Omega and their water was fine.”
Crouse hopes that the problem will be resolved soon, but she understands that there is not much that Facilities Management can do if they cannot figure out from where the issue is stemming.
“They seem to be wanting to fix it but they haven’t found how it’s going to get fixed,” she said.
With the weather warming up, Crouse hopes the problem will alleviate itself.