The_Rambler_1999-04-15

              Farmingdale Dorms are for the
Birds! Or is it the bugs? The studenf™ J " ^
dorm's have always
been of great concem^^ W e ^ l e r
to students at Farming^ff ifflRefome
a well known fact that the conditions in the
dorm's is anything but desirable. Marsha
Murray, of Lehman Hall, states,"Walking
into Lehman hall makes you want to walk
back out . .all you see is garbage". The stu-dent
dorm's seem to have various prob-lems
that make living there an everyday
chore The bathrooms seem to be the
worst part of the problem. On the first
floor of Dewey Hall, the bathroom,like
most of the other bathrooms, is plagued by
broken tiles, severe rusting, dust, stained
toilets, drooping ceiling tiles, holes in
floors and walls and more serious, faulty
light fixtures. With problems like these, it
is no wonder that these students are upset.
Below, is a picture of the one of the many
shower stalls that are missing tiles, and
covered in mildew. To the right of that you
can see another shower stall that has the
same problem.
Damaged shower stalls are not
the only thing that is wrong with the bath-rooms,
students also complain about the
bathrooms being filthy. So filthy that they
end up in the infirmary. Nicole, from
Lehman hall, as she points to areas on her
arms and legs stated,"! had to go to see the
doctor because I developed a rash after
touching the walls and floor of the show-er."
Shaunette, also a dorm student, had
this to say,"The washing
machine in the Lehmann
Hall laundry room does-n't
wash the clothes
clean...the water has a
foul smell the elevator
is constantly getting
stuck." Which would
definitely raise not only
some health issues, but
some safety issues as
well. When I spoke to
Steve Logan, Director of
Residence Life, he stated
that he was not aware that
students were becoming
ill from conditions in the
bathrooms. I spoke to Mr.
Logan concerning various
conditions within the
dorm's, I asked,"Are the
conditions in the dorm's
safe for students?" Mr.
Logan replied,"There are
certainly things that do
need attention , but the bathrooms are in
need of the most attention " Mr. Logan
also discussed the reasons why so many
things have not been maintained, apparent-ly
when the cable system was upgraded
there was never an adjustment made to
help balance everything out. So money
rental in the future and Mr Logan stat-ed"
Yes, but it is not yet know approxi-mately
how much it will cost." This is also
was deferred to make up for it and mainte-nance
was not taken care of The dorm's
are cleaned by a custodial staff that is part
of the Physical Plant at Farmingdale. Mr
Logan advised me that
they will be hiring 3 new
custodians soon, provid-ing
the proposal to
Alabany is accepted.
Residence life is a lot like
a business, they operate
on a budget, the produce
their own revenue
through rent (taken from
tuition), but they have to
answer to state regula-tions
that make it even
more difficult to operate.
I asked Mr. Logan if any
repairs were ordered to be
down for the dysfunction-al
bathrooms and he stat-ed"
One is being done in
Hughes Hall during
Spring break , the cost is
not known at this time". I
asked if this would raise
tuition costs for dorm
to help make up for the upgrade in cable-vision
going into all the dorm's.
The new bathroom is supposed to
be an example of what the others will look
like, but what about what the others should
look like now? In Alumni Hall, the bath-rooms
appear to be in very good shape,
compared to the others. In these two pho-tos
(shown on page 8) you can see a clear
difference in the appearance. Its obvious,
one is clean, one is not. Why is it that
these bathrooms are not being cleaned?
Apparently, that isn't the only place that is
unsatisfactory. " Latonia Robinson,
President of the Inter Dormitory Council,
and dorm resident, states,"The bathrooms
are not the only problem. Furniture is
missing from rooms, closet doors are
either broken or missing, mattresses are
missing springs, the hallway floors are
very rarely, if ever, cleaned," Latonia also
discussed and incident where she poured
bleach in a drain to try and break up a clog
and worms came out of the drain. All of
the students that I spoke with had tales of
flies, cockroaches, and worms. Usually
bugs like to hang out in un-clean enviro
(continued on page 8)