California State University East Bay

The Pioneer

California State University East Bay

The Pioneer

California State University East Bay

The Pioneer

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Maintenance Requests Take Days

One Student’s Quest For a Working Water Heater in The Dorms

Student housing resident Cindy Salinas, 20, has been living on campus for three years, but living situations on campus, she says, “keep getting worse instead of getting better.”

Upon moving into her current apartment on campus that she shares with three other roommates, Salinas previously lived in acceptable, but never exceptional, dorm housing, and this year would not be different.

However, after the first week of school, Salinas’ hot water heater malfunctioned on a Thursday evening—too late to report it until the next day.

“A friend of mine who works with housing told me to go to the office and put in a maintenance request,” Salinas said.

However, because of a furlough day, she was unable to the problem and had to go the entire weekend without hot water. She and her roommate were forced to shower in other friends’ dorms.

“I felt like I was a burden to my friends because I was asking to come over to their houses just to shower all weekend,” said Ali Berlin, Salinas’ roommate.

After waiting the long weekend, Salinas was finally able to speak to an assistant but left frustrated.

“I thought not having hot water was a pretty big deal!” said Salinas. “I didn’t appreciate how they had no sense of urgency. I felt like they weren’t listening to me at all.”

While Salinas’ experience with trying to get a broken water heater fixed wasn’t an emergency per se, her experience raises questions about the availability of help for students living in the dorms.

Requests for maintenance and repairs can take a couple days, said a worker from housing who wanted to remain anonymous.

“The housing office does what it can for the amount of requests we get. Once processed, requests are put in an order of seriousness, which determines priority. The process takes at least a day or two sometimes more.”

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California State University East Bay
Maintenance Requests Take Days