By Kyle Gee
Tenants at Southridge Apartments, just two blocks south of campus, watched last week as large portions of a hallway ceiling in their complex came crashing down, leaving a three-foot florescent light fixture, still aglow, dangling dangerously above puddles of water.
Southridge tenants said water had been leaking for a week in the main complex hallway before large portions of the hallway ceiling starting falling. The tenants put garbage cans and buckets in the hallway to collect the dripping water.
'We could only put so many garbage cans out there to collect the water,' said Liisha Harris, a pre-law student at UVSC who called The Daily Universe to report the problem.
'They didn''t come to fix it or do anything about it for quite a while,' said Daniel Needham, a senior at BYU, majoring in film. 'At first, the problem was just in the middle of the ceiling, and then it started to open up and more holes started to appear, and then it got worse and worse.'
'The whole situation was unsafe and really ridiculous,' said Arthur B. Critchfield, a senior, majoring in animation at BYU.
Critchfield and Needham''s apartment door opens into the damaged hallway just a few feet from where the ceiling debris landed.
The incident has stirred conflict between the tenants and their landlord, a problem commonly handled by the BYU Off-Campus Housing Office.
Maintenance employee Gustavo Ramirez believes Southridge is doing the best they can to take care of the problem. Ramirez said he was making repairs to a leaky swamp cooler and had the roof open when it began raining very hard.
'It''s partly our fault and partly the weather''s fault,' Ramirez said.
After the rainstorm began, Ramirez said he put plastic over the open roof. He also put buckets and fans in the wet hallway below.
'Obviously, the problem is not too big,' he said. 'We feel like we''re on top of it. '
Some students at Southridge disagreed.
'Now, it''s starting to leak down in the parking garage,' said tenant Muriel McClain, a senior, majoring in political science at BYU.
Tenants said management took too long to respond to their concerns and phone calls about the leaky hallway. They said management waited to cover the roof until after the rainstorm began.
'We called BYU Housing because our initial attempts to call the maintenance emergency line or our manager a week earlier were to no avail,' McClain said. 'We then called the community building inspector and then The Daily Universe.'
According to their Web page, the BYU Off-Campus Housing Office assists students by 'investigating complaints about approved apartments, and mediating and arbitrating conflicts between landlords and tenants.'
Thomas said his office takes approximately 4,500 calls a year.
The Off-Campus Housing Office is responsible for 24,000 beds, and has four employees to take calls. The BYU Off-Campus Housing Office has published guidelines to help students and landlords solve housing disputes without university intervention.
If the two parties cannot resolve the dispute on their own, a center for conflict resolution is available to assist any BYU student involved in a dispute.
The Off-Campus Housing Office has published a pamphlet titled 'Maintenance Problems,' which informs student tenants of what to do when they have maintenance problems.
According to the pamphlet, tenants should discuss any maintenance problem with their landlords first.
'The best solution if there is a problem is to talk to the manager,' said R. Craig Thomas, a BYU Off-Campus Housing Official overseeing the situation at Southridge.
Some tenants at Southridge said they called their manager immediately and left several messages, but management did not stop the leaking in the hallway, and so the water damage spread.
Southridge tenant Lindsay Nay said water damage to her bedroom closet and carpet forced her and her two roommates to leave their apartment.
'We don''t want to stay there because it smells really bad,' said Nay, who has been staying with her parents in Provo since Monday.
'I''m actually quite frustrated,' she said. 'The management is kind of making light of the whole situation. They''re making it seem like it''s not a big deal. They didn''t think it was bad enough for me to leave ... As far as I know, I''m still paying rent, and the management hasn''t offered me any compensation.'
When contacted by The Daily Universe, Southridge management said twice they were too busy to comment on the incident and would not provide The Universe with the owner''s name or phone number.
'The one obvious fact that the owner hasn''t done enough for this and another apartment complex he owns is that he hires one maintenance guy for these two apartment complexes,' McClain said. 'Maintenance requests are always backed up. I''ve lived here since August, and things only get repaired after a long time and lots of complaining.'
Needham said Ramirez has been doing everything he can to keep up with the problems.
According to the housing pamphlet, if students have talked with the landlord and feel he or she may not cooperate, the students should write their observations in a letter and mail it to their landlord, keeping a copy for their own files. In such a letter, students should restate the problem, mention the previous discussion and state they will take action if the problem is not resolved promptly.
The pamphlet also encourages students to keep detailed records such as defects lists, journals, temperature records, photographs and copies of letters.
Students should keep a written list of any defects in the apartment, the date they were first noticed and the date they notified the landlord. Students are encouraged to record specific notes of conversations they had with the landlord either in person or by phone.
McClain said she has been keeping detailed notes of all her phone conversations. Both McClain and Needham took hours of video footage of the leaks throughout the week and have video of the hallway ceiling and light fixture falling and a conversation they had with the owner. Several other tenets took photographs of the water damage.
According to BYU Housing guidelines, students should report maintenance problems to the Off-Campus Housing Office only after they have adequately informed the landlord of the problem and given the landlord a reasonable time to repair, and the landlord has failed to act.
After receiving phone calls from Southridge students and a concerned parent, BYU Off-Campus Housing Official, R. Craig Thomas, inspected the water damage at Southridge to see if management was doing its best to fix the problem. He said he instructed the students about their obligations and asked them to review the BYU Housing handbook online.
'I wasn''t really pleased with the odor that was in the bedroom, but I think management at Southridge Apartments is trying to do what they are supposed to,' Thomas said.
Southridge management told Thomas they hired another worker to help with the repairs.
'There is a lot to learn in management,' Thomas said. 'This is especially true when students manage other students. Sometimes, management does not always understand the complexity of a situation and think they can fix it on their own ... If the students and management cannot reach an agreement, it is likely that the issue will go through mediation and then arbitration with the center for conflict resolution.'
After talking with BYU Off-Campus Housing, McClain decided to contact the city.
'We called the city building inspector, and he came to see the progress of what the owner and manager are doing about it,' McClain said.
Provo Chief Building Inspector, Charles V. Hugo, visited the complex last week, the same day the largest portion of the ceiling fell.
'It will take a week to get the moisture out of the wood,' Hugo said.
Hugo said when he returns in a week he expects to see a lot of ventilation in the hallway, and will ensure that the roof is being fixed properly.
'Maybe management will do something now, but it''s because they''re forced to do it - because this issue is being brought to others'' attention, and it''s making them look bad,' McClain said.