julian/blog

Don’t get me wrong, I quite like Carnegie Mellon. It’s Carnegie Mellon Housing Services for which I have acquired quite a hatred. This is a rough outline of things they’ve done that make me not want to ever give them any of my money ever again. It’s posted mainly because I want the Internet to have record of this. I’ve taken my issues all the way up to the Director of Housing Services and no one seems to give a damn, so I’m talking to the Dean of Student Life on Wednesday.

This is going to be a lot of me whining, so feel free to skip.

• I receive my acceptance letter from Carnegie Mellon. We’re told something to the effect that the earlier we deposit our money, the better our Housing will be. I deposit right away. A friend of mine deposits a month later. “Donner” is nowhere on either of our lists. I end up in Donner A08. He was in A09. A month difference means… the next room? Please.
• My Donner room featured pieces of furniture which were damaged. Housing had no intention of even attempting to fix it—I submitted requests.
• The window screen to my Donner room had a big hole in it. This wouldn’t have been a problem except for the large wasp nest right next to it. Submitted request several times. Never fixed.
• Second semester was spent with plastic over the floor and construction going on—even up to and including the time around finals. That certainly was not fun. The amount that I had to pay for my room did not go down because of the construction.
• Sophomore year, Morewood room. I’ll note that I moved in a week and a half early and submitted my repair requests early. I would have hoped this would beat the whole influx of requests at the beginning of the year. Again with a wonderful feature of some broken furniture. Submitted requests. Never fixed or replaced.
• My wall had peeling paint. Submitted requests. Never fixed.
• The bathroom window didn’t close completely. This wasn’t much of a problem, except Pittsburgh’s winters do get rather cold, and a freezing bathroom kind of sucks.
• The smoke detector was hanging from my ceiling by a single wire. Submitted requests. My RA noticed this and said that’s really really bad. He also submitted requests. Housing had the audacity to mark my request as “completed”—I complained and so they said they’d deal with it—several requests later, the year ended, and they never did.
• End of sophomore year, I decide to work for Carnegie Mellon for the summer. My friends working at their respective schools get free housing along with their pay. I take a significant pay cut over my previous jobs and don’t get free housing. Thanks Carnegie Mellon.
• Around the week before finals and during finals I realize that I want to go home before I start working. This means going home before Housing allows people to move in to their summer housing. I have a better room in Morewood for next year which is better than the one I had, but if it means I can’t go home, I’d rather just stay in the one I had. I try to explain this to Housing / Conference Services (summer division of Housing Servies).
• I also realize that I want to stay until July 1, at which time I’ll move in with my friend in his apartment. Conference Services has “Summer Session I” ending June 24. I try to explain this to Housing / Conference Services.
• A week goes by and I get no response. I send a more urgent email. I need to know whether I’m moving or not, and need to be going home soon. A Conference Services woman calls me in the middle of my last dinner out with my girlfriend before she leaves for the summer. I try to not talk then, but the woman insists it’s urgent. Conference Services of course somehow lost all my previous emails and doesn’t know what’s going on and why I’m upset.
• I end up staying in my current room to simplify things for Conference Services, even though it gets much much hotter than the other room. I get an email saying I have that room assignment.
• I go home. In the middle of driving to Washington, D.C. to visit my dad a woman from Conference Services calls to let me know that they’ve assigned a roommate to my room and I should move all my stuff. I say, “Uh, no, in the email you guys sent me about my room assignment said I was the only one.” She points out that for my roommate’s name it says “tenative” and proceeds to treat me as if I have no idea what that word means. I say that I’m in Washington, D.C. and won’t be back to Pittsburgh for another couple of days. We get into a big argument about how I have left campus “against the better judgement of Conference Services,” and more importantly, against the wording of my contract. She proceeds to treat me like a child who cannot read. My mom calls and argues with them, and surprise, no more roommate.
• The woman informs me that my “extended stay” to July 1 is also only tentative and they’ll try to get that worked out.
• A few weeks go by, and then I get an email saying that there will be construction going on on Morewood. This involves construction workers building structures all the way up to the roof, which means I no longer really have a window, because the construction workers could easily be looking in. I email Conference Services asking if I will get a discount since there’s construction going on and I don’t really have a window anymore. They laugh. Of course not.
• Housing does let me stay until July 1. It’s nice that I didn’t have to sleep in the office for a week. How incredibly kind of them.
• And the kicker: I decide I want to stay in this apartment next summer. I got so sick of Housing, especially after dealing with all that stuff over the summer. I email Housing to ask if I can possibly stay in this apartment instead of staying in my room assignment for next year. Of course not.

The contract I signed back in March had a cancellation deadline of April 16. After that, the only way I can cancel is through death, marriage, suspension, or physical or psychological disorders as confirmed by Health Services. That’s what the contract says, but the previous two years Housing was offering money to people to leave Housing since they were overbooked. I figured it wouldn’t be that difficult to convince them to let me not pay the $2600. Oh how I was wrong.

I received some pretty strongly-worded emails (sent to everyone) over the summer about how Housing will not be extending the April 16 cancellation deadline. They also included the process for requesting to be removed from Housing. I was to email a particular woman, and if she says no, I was to submit an appeal… to the exact same email address.

I submitted a cancellation request, received my “no,” and then took it to the Director of Housing. He told me I didn’t understand the cancellation process, since it had already been appealed and denied. Um, ok. The Director “reviewed my case” and concurred. Of course.

My mom calls up one of the people who was actually nice in the way he spoke to me. She says the conversations with him weren’t at all like the conversations she had with Conference Services, but nonetheless, he insists that there’s no way I can get out and that Housing actually will have open rooms next semester.

Of course, way back in April, I had every intention of staying in Housing. Intent obviously means nothing. I also paid a $250 deposit supposedly for cases like this where I pull out of Housing. I told them I’d gladly let them keep my $250 deposit if they just let me out. Apparently that deposit is just another way for them to take money. My Morewood room does not have air conditioning. I have to share it with some random roommate. I have to pay a lot of money. It’s tiny. My house here on Wilkins is incredibly spacious, has central air, and I get my own bedroom. I much prefer it.

And so I’m taking my case to the Dean of Student Life. And I’ll probably be turned down. My only hope is that he actually cares that Housing has been treating an undergraduate like this. I don’t want them getting away with this.

I hate Carnegie Mellon Housing Services.

Edit: Because of the nature of this post, my edits will be added in to the above. I added the bit about $250 thanks to a reminder from Stephen Holt.

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