College freshmen return to dorm to find ceiling collapsed

On the afternoon of Feb. 13, two students walked back to their dorm to find that part of their ceiling had collapsed.

College freshman Alex Crane and Wharton freshman Gabe Ren discovered that paint and chips from the ceiling covered the floor of their dorm on the fourth floor hall of Butcher in Ware College House.

“Water pooled up and the ceiling collapsed,” Crane said. “We initially put in a work order for a few leaks in the ceiling and then the next day, our ceiling was on our floor.”

He noted that he saw parts of the ceiling continuing to fall when he walked into his room, at which point he called Penn Residential Services.

Crane said that he and Ren have been temporarily moved to live in two singles in Fisher Hassenfeld College House. Residential Services told him that they would be out of their room for at least three weeks, but there is no time frame of when they will be in their old room.

Ren was disappointed at the lack of initiative that Residential Services took to right the situation.

“There was no compensation for the time spent moving from our old room to the temporary one,” Ren said. “They also didn’t give a clear plan for our housing situation for the rest of the semester.”

“Especially during a midterm season like we are in right now, this is a pretty stressful situation,” Crane said. “I think they could have checked on the situation more efficiently because it obviously was a much bigger issue than just leaks.”

Correction: A previous version of this article said Facilities and Real Estate Services "did not respond" to a request for comment. The spokesperson for FRES was actually not contacted in advance of this article. The DP regrets the error.