CU Reslife deceptively depicting the EC lobby as peaceful.

We were all jealous of the renovated Carman dorm rooms…but was it warranted? After one room’s ceiling fell in, they were relocated to another coveted Columbia housing option – East Campus. Bwogger Aliya Schneider investigated the move and the freshmen’s reactions.  

I didn’t think freshmen could live in EC, but two weeks into the semester, two Carman roommates’ room aesthetic changed beyond their control. They noticed something odd and brown on their ceiling. No, it wasn’t from shotgunning getting out of hand. Something was wrong with their renovated Carman double.

“We called Hartley Hospitality multiple times. We also sent a couple e-mails complaining about the brown stain and the odor it gave off, but they didn’t do much,” one of the roommates told Bwog. “It took multiple calls for them to actually come check out the stain. They fixed it, but that same night, the stain came back and became worse than ever.”

The freshman source told me that as the brown stain returned, it eventually dried up. Despite the frequent calls, hospitality was unresponsive until the roommates marched to Hartley Hospitality in person to show them photo evidence of the extent to which the brown stain had developed a new texture. Unable to ignore the aggravated freshmen, hospitality decided to provide temporary housing for them in EC, assuring them that their Carman ceiling would be fixed within a week. That night, the plaster on the ceiling fell off, deteriorating the ceiling of the renovated Carman double, making the hopes of a quick return diminish.

The ceiling was not given any attention by facilities for a few days after it fell.

The stain was not from their floor mates messing with them, and it was not from their RA taking revenge for their lack of attendance at weekly study breaks. “Apparently the brown stains were from leaks from the roof, and they appeared throughout the 13th floor. They weren’t as big or dangerous as ours,” shared the freshman who told her story to Bwog.

“The move to EC happened at around [midnight] the night the ceiling fell. It took multiple trips and it was extremely inconvenient because they did not help us with this. Our RA was kind enough to help out.”

The freshmen spent about a week and a half living in EC, enjoying a “nice and spacious room.” However, it was far away from everyone the two freshmen knew, and it was “slightly inconvenient.”

While many students would love the easy access to EC parties in such accommodations, these freshmen did not feel grounded by the drunk upperclassmen flooding clogging the entranceway fighting with security guards. Perhaps the idea of a man falling through a shaft of your building isn’t appealing to everyone.

The freshman told me that the physical distance from all her friends came as a burden, but think of how many Barnard friends she could make by having EC sign-ins!

These freshmen roommates are now back in hormone-filled Carman safe and sound. They are at peace, once again with access to their freshman study breaks, premature pre-games, and comfortable walking distance of Beta. After getting a sneak peak of what their college experience can be in three years, they have made it back home.

East Campus Lobby via Columbia Housing