Despite efforts by Facilities and Real Estate Services and construction crews to avoid the types of problems that inconvenienced residents of Hamilton College House after its renovation was completed last fall, Facilities Services continues to receive a variety of complaints from Harrison College House residents.
One of the most consistent complaints focuses on dormitory bathrooms, as students continue to experience difficulty with the plumbing service and pipelines that lead from room to room.
While a $26.5 million renovation was recently completed in Harrison, dorm bathrooms and kitchens were not updated.
Due to a blocked toilet in the room above him, the bathroom ceiling of College sophomore Mats Olsen broke apart and fell into his bathroom.
"I'm in the bathroom, and suddenly the ceiling starts leaking and it gets worse and worse -- the ceiling is soaked with water," Olsen said.
After stepping out to call Facilities Services, "The roof just breaks open," he recalled, noting that "the only thing holding up the ceiling" was the shower curtain rod.
He added that, when maintenance workers came to remedy the situation, they only installed a temporary drywall ceiling instead of completely fixing the ceiling.
According to Director of Facilities Services Betsy Robinson, these types of problems are caused by the original plumbing in the building, which is over 30 years old.
Water had to be turned off two times last week in Harrison House due to problems with the piping system. On Wednesday, water was not working in certain rooms for approximately six hours, and on Friday, the water was shut down for about five hours.
The problem on Friday was caused by a breakdown in the building plumbing risers, the devices that connect two pipes together.
"The system is an old system. There are not valves on every floor, so it affects the entire building," Robinson said. "There was a problem with the toilet, which caused us to have to shut down the [No.] 13 riser," which affected all rooms ending in 13, from floor one to 21.
Robinson noted that a similar shutdown also occurred on Friday in Hamilton.
Students also report problems with their toilet facilities.
"Our toilet is completely unusable. ... It doesn't flush," College sophomore Laura Klein said.
Though two workers did stop by with a plunger to try to fix the leaky toilet, they were unable to solve the problem, according to Klein.
After nearly three weeks of using neighbors' bathrooms, the problem was remedied by Facilities workers.
Similarly, Engineering junior David Jordan says that the problems with his bathroom has begun to affect his entire apartment.
"The major problem is that the toilet leaks," Jordan said, adding that it appears as if this has been an ongoing problem.
Jordan said the water has leaked onto his apartment's carpet, causing half of it to become wet.
When Facilities workers came to look at his bathroom, Jordan was told they were not able to fix the problem and needed to call a plumber. For now, Jordan uses a large bowl to catch the water that drips, saying that he empties it "about every eight hours."
Recently, on weekends, the wait to talk to a Facilities worker via the University emergency phone line has been over 25 minutes.
Robinson said that the delay was due to the fact that, on the weekends, Penn uses its less staffed operational call center, a different service than its traditional customer call service. Only one person staffs the operational call center, slowing down Facilities Services response to student room emergencies.
"There's always one person, [but the delay is] simply because the person is answering other calls and other emergencies," Robinson said.
"We highly encourage [students] at any point during the day [to] put in work tickets through Facilities Webmail," Robinson added.
She also noted that Facilities Services has added more mechanics to its operational call center who can respond immediately to students' emergency problems, but do not answer the phone lines.
Nevertheless, Klein and Olsen, both of whom lived in the Quadrangle during their freshman year, agree that they like Harrison despite the problems.
"I'm happy here, even with all the problems here and there," Olsen said.
