Eight days ago I moved into my dorm room. Upon arriving at the dorms we were informed that renovations that were supposed to take place over the summer hadn’t been finished; apparently, they started renovations sometime in July, even though the building had been unoccupied seen mid-May. In case the incomplete renovations weren’t enough of a hassle, we were treated to a host of other problems ranging from mildly annoying to health hazards. Among the problems with out suite:
[ul]
[li]The refrigerator hasn’t arrived yet[/li][li]The stove arrived a couple of days ago, but instead of an outlet for it, there’s exposed wiring; in other words, the stove’s currently useless[/li][li]The closet doors haven’t been installed; they are instead propped up against the wall until the school decides to actually put them on[/li][li]Various lights are burned out and/or missing covers[/li][li]A number of outlets and switches are missing faceplates[/li][li]The showers have no drain covers or faceplates on the overflow[/li][li]The AC barely works in most of the suite, particularly in my room[/li][li]The AC vents have no covers on them[/li][li]Black dirt-like stuff is coming out of the AC vents in the bathrooms and maybe in other rooms[/li][li]Water drips from the AC intake in the hall in multiple spots at an alarming rate. We’ve been told that the pipes have not been properly insulated; no word on when or if it’ll be fixed[/li][li]Because of the moisture, there’s what looks like mold inside the AC unit[/li][/ul]
That’s all I can think of right now, but I’m almost surely forgetting a few things. After arguing with the people in charge of housing, they eventually agreed to give us free meals in the cafeteria until the appliances arrive (their initial response was that we could just try to get by on microwave food like ramen :rolleyes: ). As you can imagine, I’d rather not go on like this much longer, but I don’t really expect the school to actually fix many of these problems of their own volition, particularly the problems with the AC. Do I have any legal options to force the school into action, or at least to get back some of the money I paid (more than last year, thanks to a hike in dorm prices) for what I was told would be a newly renovated suite?
I would assume that any bulding would have to meet building code, and things like exposed wiring would probably be a violation of that code. Call the appropriate enforcement agency.
Are you on a month to month rental agreement, or have you paid for the entire year? If you want to move out, you may be able to claim constructive eviction to break the lease or rental agreement:
Of course, the law varies from state to state regarding the conditions that constitute constructive eviction. Some states would consider non-working appliances as grounds for constructive eviction.
I’ve paid for the year. Anything else I’d get in the area for the same price would probably be in worse condition anyway, so I’m not really interested in moving out. I’m just hoping I can find an effective way of getting their asses in gear about fixing these problems.
When you accepted on-campus housing, did you sign any sort of housing contract? If so, dig up your copy of it, and see if they say anything about the condition of the room, etc.
This would seem to be the item of interest:
What exactly constitutes “reasonable efforts to restore service”? Last year it took about a semester and a half for them to get around to fixing a friend’s AC; that doesn’t seem like reasonable effort to me.
In my state, certain ‘unliveable’ deficiencies and safety hazards may legally be fixed by the tenant, by following a specific procedure (you can’t roll your own).
IIR, the tenant notifies the landlord in writing of the issue, and informs him (in advance?) of intent to correct it and take the cost out of the month’s rent. Then the tenant hires an electrician or other contractor and goes right ahead, and gets a receipt.
Sounds as if you have enough people in the same circumstances there so you could even pay for a lawyer to get it right, although you could probably research it on your own.
That contract is kinda one-sided, was drawn up by the housing authority, and you probably had to sign take-it-or-leave-it, no negotiations. Your cohorts could certainly give the housing people more grief than for free meals, and motivate them to get off their butts.
It could well be argued that “all reasonable efforts” would not involve waiting two months to start work in July when you were then moving in in one month, in August.
Sounds like a legally unenforceable provision. You should sue the school in court for damages. Likely they’d want to settle out of court. “Reasonable” would mean you’d have to allow adequate time to get things ship shape. This should take no more than a few days.
I know you asked for legal recourse, and I can’t help with that. I do, however, have a piece of advice.
Fortunately I commute, but in my younger, stupider, try-out-five-or-six-colleges days I lived in my fair share of dorms and college apartments. The only problem I ever had was an A/C that dripped onto my bed, but I duct taped a piece of cardboard up there and took care of the problem.
When I was in dorm room hell, I never thought about this, but last semester I was in a class with a couple of guys who were work-study. They were campus handymen, in charge of exactly the type of stuff you’re talking about. Were I in your situation, I’d try to track these guys down and buddy up and get the problem fixed. IIRC, they had work orders but were able to basically do things in the order they chose.
YMMV, but it’s worth a shot.
Bad publicity might help. You could try contacting the local newspaper or the television stations. What you described might make for a nice visual story. On the other hand, involving the media will embarrass and antagonize the housing office. You might instead talk to the head of the housing office or the dean of students.
I know this would be embarassing, but if less severe methods fail, have your mom call the university’s CEO and complain how mismanaged your dorm is.
When I worked for a .edu we were scared of nothing so much as a student or parent complainly loudly to our chancellor.
By the way, housing/rent/landlord laws vary by state and municipality. You really need to get a copy of your state laws and then your city codes, if any exist on this matter.
This stuff varies from state to state, and when I researched Ohio laws on this, I found I had MUCH LESS recourse than I thought. Ohio is one of the most pro-business and anti-consumer states in the union. You may have more rights in a big city or a more liberal state.
I also found out that a tenant in a neighboring city had wound up homeless mid-December for calling the health department on his landlord.
The health dept guy came out, inspected the property, and found it to be so sub-par that he condemned the building. On the spot. The tenant had to move out, and as his landlord had no other properties open, he got his rent back, but the scene was worse than if he’d just waited until better weather to call.
Bear that last bit in mind before involving the authorities.
As a final note, document, document, document. If this issue gets escalated, documentation is power.
That was going to be my suggestion. Particularly if it’s a state university, where the news story, as well as focusing on the poor conditions, can also make an argument about the institution’s acceptance of state funds and its responsibility to the students (mainly from in-state) who go there.
If your local news station had an investigative reporter, the local version of Geraldo Rivera, that would be even better.
Geraldo Rivera is an investigative reporter?
That’s news to me.
I’ve always been under the impression he was a glory-seeking hack.
It may have been implied in the prior posts, that the threat of media attention might work faster and more smoothly than springing some headlines on the school, especially since you would want fixes in the next few days.
Note the strategic considerations involved in shooting off your biggest cannon first and trying to negotiate second.
When they agreed to provide meals, what else was said? You agreed to pursue no further action? There was a time-frame given? How many electricians are working in your dorm? How many rooms need electrical work? Does the school have an tick-off list of the tasks required throughout the dorm (first step, without that they don’t have a time-frame or a budget)? Are all your room’s items on it? What is the supplier’s delivery date for the refrigerators? How many maintenance guys are working on the issues? What are the provisions of the school’s contract for fixing/upgrading the air-conditioning?
Is there any structure for resident representation? Who are the guys, and have they pursued these questions: ie, what side are they on?
If they’re not effective advocates, how many malcontents can you get together to roll your own representation? There’s strength in numbers, as well as potential for some good times here.
take pictures of all of the defects
keep a log of all contact you have had with the school regarding these issues, along with the outcome
contact your local housing authority/building inspector and arrange for an inspection
ask for a copy of the violations report
based upon all of this, you may be able to seek a rent abatement or refund for a portion of the amount you have prepaid for the dorm room
an uninstalled closet door is more of a punch list item than grounds for an abatement, but the inability to use the appliances and facilities in the manner in which they were intended to be used would be abatement worthy in my area, and possibly yours too
it does not sound as if the “no abatements” portion of your housing contract applies to this. i read it to mean they won’t refund your money per diem if the power goes our for a day or if the water has to be shut off for a few hours while they make necessary repairs.
that should read “if the power goes out for a day”
Virtually everything on this list appears to be either a violation of health and building codes (exposed wiring, missing faceplates, draincovers, standing water) or a breach of implied contract (even if it doesn’t say in the housing agreement that a working AC or fridge is provided, if it says so in the promotional literature and was what you were led to believe would be provided it is part of the overall agreement).
In this order:[ul]
[li]Contact Student Housing and present your list of grievences, in writing, to the director or dean. Carbon copy the chancellor or campus director. Request a prompt written response, detailing when and how the remediation will be completed.[/li][li]Contact the student representative organization (most universities have one). Provide a copy of above list. Request arbitration if Student Housing doesn’t immediately and satisfactorialy respond with plans to fix your problems.[/li][li]Contact the municipal or county health and housing service. Detail your complaints, espeically those with possible safety hazards. Request response. (They’ll usually jump on this with a phone call within the day.)[/li][li]If it part of a university system, contact the Board of Regents or overall governing board. If it is a state university, contact the approriate representative and senator for that district. Forward copies of all above documentation.[/li][li]If none of this gets a response, then go to the media. But odds are, with a situation like this, it need not go this far, and the resulting publicity may be just as disruptive as the room environment.[/li][/ul]You should demand, and expect, a prompt response from Student Housing, especially if you’ve contacted the upper administration about it. If that doesn’t get a response, going outside the standard channels should bring pressure to bear. It’s frustrating and irritating, I know (especially their response that you should eat raman and live with the post-apocalyptic environment they provide) but don’t go off half-cocked without rounding the bases.
Stranger
Thanks to all for the responses. I’ve started collecting photo evidence of everything that’s wrong and will follow your suggestions to contact various authority figures. I think I’ll also try to track down the literature the school sent me over the summer which contained a lot of information about what the renovations were supposed to entail, making it sound as though work was already completed. That’ll make a nice match for the papers they handed to us during check-in, which were our first notice that renovations hadn’t been completed.
A work crew came by earlier today, but refused to do anything but put a cover on the light in my room and replace some (but not all) of the missing or broken lightbulbs, claiming that we hadn’t filed work orders (at least two of the five people in my suite did; I personally filed eight for various problems). Were I more paranoid, I’d consider this a token gesture to allow them to say “look, we’re making progress!”
In any case, things could certainly be worse; the hall-style dorms connected to this building were “renovated” this summer as well. Last I heard, some of the toilets still hadn’t had stalls put up around them, and the showers had no curtains.
And of course, any time I spend trying to make my living conditions more pleasant is time away from doing actual schoolwork. Did I mention that these are the dorms for the honors college?
What really amazes me is that my school has the fourth highest alumni satisfaction rating of any school in the nation, public or private.