The cold weather is preventing maintenance crews from repairing the damage to the top floor of 4008 Wayne apartments. Residence Life and Maintenance are offering to assist all students seeking to move into different housing.

The damage to the roof of 4008 is due to ice creeping under the shingles and melting once the heat rises into the attic. For the moment, Maintenance is performing inspections on an almost daily basis to ensure that no further damage occurs.

“Unfortunately, Maintenance aren’t roofers,” Ken Stepherson, head of Maintenance, said, “so we can’t fix the problem. We have to hire someone to come in and fix it.” There are plans to bring a contractor to fix the problem once there is a spring thaw.

Every year Maintenance labels problems on campus as “deferred maintenance,” or issues that Maintenance cannot afford to fix at the moment and must wait for another year. 4008 was originally slated for deferred maintenance, but has been shifted to a top priority issue, Stepherson said.

“Instead of doing three or four of the Briggs and Lewis apartment roofs, I’ll do three of the Briggs roofs and have the roofer go over and take a look at that one and try and fix it in the spring,” Stepherson said.

Stepherson also wanted to emphasize that the issue will be addressed as soon as possible. “We will take care of it. But we can’t do it this time of year.”

Residence Life is willing to assist students with moving to new housing on campus. Members of the staff have encouraged students to move out of their residences on 4008 Wayne because of the extensive damage, Alice Agnew, Director of Residence Life said.

“As with any year, we’re certainly willing to move people,” Agnew said. “We certainly have plenty of spaces to do so, if they don’t want to live there. And I appreciate not wanting to live there.”

The high cost of living in 4008 Wayne has led students to ask whether they will be reimbursed some of the money they have spent to live there once they move to different housing. While the cost of the housing will change once the students move, students will not be directly reimbursed, Agnew said.
“If it’s been paid, it will probably show up as a credit on their bill. If they’re going to be back as a student next year, it would just go back into paying for that. Or a refund would get issued by SFS [Student Financial Services],” Agnew said.