Fire alarms have been going off repeatedly in college houses across campus, though rarely in response to actual emergencies.
Hamilton College House's second fire alarm of last week occurred when a student placed an empty coffee pot on a live coffee burner early Wednesday morning. Many students disregarded the 4 a.m. wake-up call, however, due to its close resemblance to the earlier alarm that had signaled a small microwave fire that did not cause any damage.
Stouffer College House residents also continue to be inconvenienced by emergency alarms that have been set off both in the afternoon and early morning hours.
"It has been happening a number of times. It's pretty ridiculous," Stouffer resident and College sophomore Rafael Garcia said.
Regardless of the annoyance most students feel from the false alarms, some have a different outlook.
"It was a lot of fun -- you got to get out there, see everyone in their pajamas," College freshman and Hamilton resident Yoni Levinson said. "It made my college experience for me."
Other students -- especially those who had exams that day -- were not as amused by the alarm, which continued to sound in short intervals after the initial alarm went off.
"It was disruptive for a while, and not only that -- after it was over, there were these little short alarms that happened for the next 20 minutes," College and Wharton senior Brendan Houser said.
"It wasn't to the point where I was dying from lack to sleep, but I'm sure that [from] not getting a full night's sleep ... your mind is not in the best state, especially if you tried to go bed early -- it kind of disrupts that goal," College senior Anthony Neshewat added.
"Getting woken up twice very early was not cool," College sophomore Jacqueline Stein said.
Others also stressed that the frequency of the alarms was cause for complaint.
"It only lasted about 15 minutes, [but] it was still very annoying," said Neshewat, whose roommate had a biology exam the next morning.
Fire alarms have also been sounding continuously in Stouffer -- though, unlike in Hamilton, there seems to be less of a reason for the alarms.
"There was a sequence of there being a fire alarm in the afternoon and then another one in the morning at about 4:30 a.m.," College sophomore Aaron Rock said. "I had to go outside at 4:30 in the morning -- it was not so much fun."
Other residents echoed these sentiments.
"Whenever they try to do maintenance with the building, it goes off. We've been awoken a number of times in the middle of the night," Garcia added.
Facilities Services did not return calls for comment.
