Housing complaints keep building

Well, it's now summer time. If you are living on campus this summer, odds are you had to move a few weeks ago. Those who have experienced it firsthand can testify to what torture it is to haul all of your belongings across campus into a new room. It has recently dawned on me that no one in the housing office realizes just how unpleasant this experience is.

By the beginning of the fall semester I will have been at this school for exactly four years and had to move seven times. This seems a bit excessive to me. I'm not sure exactly what set of priorities housing entertains whenever they formulate the logistics for housing all of us, but keeping someone in the same room for an extended period of time is not very high on the list. Can we get a couple IE grad students on this? I am not sure what they would come up with, but they would have a hard time making the situation any worse than it is currently.

However, moving isn't the only thing that has me a little irritated at housing. No, the experience that took the cake happened last fall at Center Street apartments. I was woken up by some grungy contractor telling me that he was "here to change the carpet."

"I beg your pardon? No, I'm sorry that's not right. We haven't been told anything about having our carpet changed."

I desperately wished this was some sort of mistake, but it wasn't.

It was final exam week and Tech housing wanted to change the carpet in our apartment while we were living there. This couldn't be right. Barring some malicious joke, there was really no way anyone from housing maintenance could have been cruel enough to seriously suggest such a thing. After several emails with officials pleading for mercy, the best we could do was get the changing of the carpet pushed back until after final exams.

For all the urgency to get our carpet changed, you would figure there was some biological hazard incurred by keeping the carpet we had. No, there was nothing even wrong with our carpet. There were very few stains, no tears, no unusual smells and no toxic mold growing in the corner. The answer we got from housing on why it needed be changed was "It was supposed to be changed two years ago." If it was supposed to be changed two years ago, why is it being changed now instead of when it was supposed to be two years ago?

At any rate, the day finally came. For 24 straight hours we cooperated with housing in a colossal shuffling of furniture within our apartment so they could change our carpet. Afterward, despite the horrible glue fumes, we were offered no other place to stay. We had no choice but to open up all the windows and just wait until the smell cleared. Oh well, at least I would have clean carpet until I graduated - or not. It turns out that starting this summer, Center Street was closing for the first time in practically forever and we would have to move.

The news of Center Street closing for the summer made the timing of the carpet change that much more infuriating. Why put people through the colossal inconvenience of changing their carpet while they are living there if the whole apartment complex is going to be closed for maintenance in another 4 months? What sorts of clowns are running this circus? Does anyone think about these things in advance?

Two things are very obvious-the planning was haphazard at best and there was little to no regard for the people residing in these apartments. The overall lack of competence in handling that whole situation is just inexcusable.

A few months later it's time for me to sign up for fall housing. I'll be on campus for the summer and the fall, so I would prefer to have the same room for both terms. By some folly (most likely my own), I chose a room for the fall that isn't going to be open this summer. By the time I catch my mistake, fall housing deadline has already closed and I was stuck.

After much begging and pleading in person and through an email I was basically told "tough luck." So after moving three weeks ago, I'll be moving again in less than three months. I honestly think I'd rather have a root canal without anesthesia. Doctor, where is my chair?