Note: Louisiana legislators will decide what to do with a significant surplus of cash available to the state in the next legislative session in March. Ahead of the session, The Reveille is dedicating a string of stories looking at LSU’s infrastructure. This is the sixth story in the ongoing series.
When Chloe McGuckin moved back into her dorm after Christmas break, she found black spots all over the walls and on her lampshade that had to be replaced.
The mass communication freshman lives in Beauregard Hall, one of five dorms that make up the Pentagon Community, built in 1923.
She filled out a work order on Saturday and maintenance came to her room Sunday, said they found nothing and left. She stayed with a friend for three nights until Residential Life addressed the issue. Maintenance came again Tuesday and addressed the problem.
Hot water outages, peeling paint, spotty wifi and bug problems are some of the issues Pentagon residents described.
“There will be bugs sitting on the ceiling of the bathroom. It’s super, super gross,” said film and television freshman Mary Dum, who lives in LeJuene Hall.
Dum said she discovered cracks along the bathroom window frames that allow the insects to crawl in. In the beginning of the fall 2021 semester, residents sometimes sprayed the bathroom ceiling bugs with Raid, causing them to fall all over the floor, sink and toilet.
Dum said their air conditioning window unit emits an awful smell. When her friends started investigating the weird odor in her dorm, she pulled out the A.C. unit’s filters, which Dum was convinced they had hardly ever been cleaned, if ever.
“It was covered in dust and grossness,” Dum said. “Even after a week, it got all dusty again, and the smell didn’t go away.”
She’s found herself desperately trying to coat the smell with air fresheners, yet the odor overpowers the store-bought fragrance. Even leaving her dorm, Dum feels like the smell lingers on her.
Biology freshman Mikayla Zeigler deals with the same, smelly problem in LeJuene Hall. Zeigler and her roommate practice clean habits, and they’re sure that they identified the source of the problem to be the A.C. unit.
“The A.C. smells,” Zeigler said. “Our room always smells. I’ve tried Febreeze but it’s just always musty in here.”
Zeigler believes the “black fuzzy stuff” emitting from her A.C. is causing or at least making her constant congestion and sickness worse.
If Zeigler adjusts the room temperature through the AC unit, the temperature will not change, she said. Her ceiling fan breaking did not help the issue.
“It’s always hot in here,” Zeigler said.
Business junior Peyton Watson is a residential assistant at the Pentagon Community. Watson has residents come to her about a wide range of the building’s issues.
The most recent issue Watson has had to face was maggots in one of her residents’ showers on the second floor in LeJuene Hall.
“With bug issues, it’s been because residents have been putting food in the [bathroom] trashcans,” Watson said. “I’ve actually had the janitors or custodial staff come to me to specifically ask residents to not throw food in the bathroom.”
Watson emphasized the importance that residents must fill out work orders to communicate an issue. “Without a report, residential life will not know there is an issue to fix,” she said.
“If something isn’t being cleaned properly, we can report it and they will come back and do it,” Watson said.
However, Watson believes that the bugs could also be the result of a “structural” issue. She has spotted several cracks between her wall and air-conditioning unit, the similar cracks Dum has spotted in her dorm and communal bathroom.
“Around my air conditioning, there’s little spaces where you can see outside. The building is really old,” Watson said.
Executive director of Housing and Residence, Peter Trentacoste also stresses the importance of filing work orders. However, some work orders may be prioritized over others depending on the severity of the issue.
“Bugs are pretty crafty,” Trentacoste said, “and on the other side of it too, is that we also need to balance the reality of how we have students living here for the first time, and sometimes we discover through health and safety inspection, or through bugs, that it’s a cleanliness issue that has to be addressed.”
Bugs are “unfortunately a fact of life” in the south, Trentacoste said.
Trentacoste is currently working on an analysis to determine whether additional money should go into renovating existing dorms or to construct new ones.
This analysis is part of the Master Housing Plan, and it’s been evolving for the past decade, said Trentacoste. Azalea, Camelia and Nicholson Gateways are all products of the Master Housing Plan to cope with increased enrollment. Trentacoste predicts the construction of a third building next to Azalea and Camelia in the future.
“The goal is to document that it’s constantly evolving to students’ needs and to the needs of LSU in terms of enrollment goals,” Trentacoste said.
A air conditioner sits Saturday, Nov. 6, 2021, inside a wall of The Pentagon on Dalrymple Drive.
