Opinions: Breaking the mold

[Guest guest]

Opinions: Breaking the mold

published on Thursday, March 27, 2008

ASU Web Devil - Tempe,AZ*

http://www.asuwebdevil.com/issues/2008/03/27/opinions/704371

If you pull a slice of bread out of a bag and it happens to have

green and brown spots of disgustingness all over it, you typically

have three options.

First, you can make a sandwich. This is not advisable. Second, you

can feed the ducks. This is slightly more advisable. And third, you

can throw that nasty junk in the nearest trash receptacle. This is

obviously the best choice.

So then why was the third option not in ASU Residential Life's

playbook when it learned Best Hall C had transformed into that

metaphorical piece of moldy bread?

According to stories from multiple students, the problems in Best C

are plentiful — one story tells of a six-foot-long, two-foot-wide

saturated strip of carpet stained by thick brown goo, Another story

tells of a room being evacuated and treated for asbestos

contamination around the time when some students turned up sick, and

the final story tells of an overturned mattress covered in mold. In

these stories, the common link was two-fold: How very horrid of a

place Best C comes off as and how very little had been done to

rectify the situation.

Well, unless you care to count the cliché " everything's fine " talk

as fixing the problem — a talk, which, mind you, is usually reserved

for insensitive significant others and bad-advice-giving jerks.

Yet somehow, what's concerning here to us isn't even the lack of

solid response, it's the way this issue is being played off.

Overall, the way Residential Life has responded to the issues in

Best C has been shadier than the underside of a tree at high noon.

And that's exactly what makes us so unnerved for our Center Complex

compadres.

It's the fact that the maintenance crew came in to the goo-infested

room, said, " That's interesting " and left. It's the fact that the

blueprints for that room were mysteriously lost. It's the fact that,

according to Herrera, manager of Facilities Management, the

policy states " It is always up to the resident to determine if they

want to stay in their room or have the halls staff transfer them to

another room until the problem can be rectified. " Really? A policy

like that applies for a problem like this?

None of this is good enough. Not even close.

The fact that the words " mold " and " asbestos " — both coming with a

handful of possible negative health effects — have come up at all

should be a much bigger deal if for no other reason than the

residents' deserving it.

Yet many students still live in Best C today — a building students

say houses mold and asbestos — and these problems won't magically

fix themselves.

At the end of the day, what it comes down to is this: Residential

Life pulled out that wicked wedge of wheat, spots and all, from the

aforementioned bread bag. So what did it decide to do?

It shrugged, went the sandwich-making route and then went to feed

the ducks. If you recall, these were the moves considered to be not

so advisable.

So, how is this response even possible, Residential Life? Not only

is it just plain messed up, it also makes for a terrible sandwich.