Campus showers lack consistent quality

For some Penn students, morning showers may include mold, dirt and grime.

Bathrooms around campus range from the luxurious to the disgusting, which could be due to the varying ages of the facilities.

"It's just not very clean," Wharton freshman Sarah Iosifescu said of her fourth-floor Hill College House bathroom.

The shower has "a dirty soap dish with rust around it and a little bit of mold," she said.

The last time widespread work on bathrooms occurred on campus was in 2002 as part of the $75 million renovations of the Quadrangle.

And although the high rise dormitories will have undergone $80 million worth of renovations by the end of this summer, the construction doesn't include improvements to bathrooms or showers.

Facilities and Real Estate Services has, however, "made some improvements on a needed basis," Facilities spokesman Tony Sorrentino said, noting that future plans for bathroom renovations in on-campus housing are still undecided.

"You can definitely tell that they're 30 years old," College sophomore Jeffrey Aaronson said of the showers in Harnwell College House. But he added that he believes the showers can withstand a few more years of use.

"I can't complain," he said.

Locust Area Director of Facilities Betsy Robinson acknowledged that all of the plumbing in the three high rises is in need of renovations.

"The high rises have been problematic," she said. "Frankly, the pipes have not been changed since the building was built."

College sophomore Lindsay Warren said the shower head in her bathroom comes out of a hole in the wall and that the water is frequently too hot or too cold.

She added that her bathroom ceiling caved in during finals last semester.

"It's pretty bad, actually ... our shower really sucks," said Warren, a resident of Harnwell.

College sophomore Jason Greco lives on the seventh floor of Harnwell and also has problems with his bathroom.

"There's rust everywhere," he said of the tub and shower. His bathroom ceiling also caved in, and he noted that the process of fixing the ceiling took three weeks.

Robinson said, however, that there have not been too many problems reported with bathrooms in other campus residences.

Wharton freshman Ashley Clouser, a Fisher-Hassenfeld College House resident, said the main problem with her bathroom is the cleanliness factor.

"They're not cleaned up on weekends, [and] people tend to not clean up after themselves," she said, adding that "filth accumulates throughout the day," even when the cleaning service does stop by the bathroom.

"It's pretty disgusting, [but] overall they're fine," she said.

Some students may complain about dirty bathrooms, but the residents of the first floor of Chesnut in Ware College House have something better than the norm.

Engineering freshman Joe Frey said although his shower "is not much cleaner than other showers," the shower head itself offers an extravagant range of five pressure settings.

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