While Old Leonardtown residents often cite minor issues with heating and hot water, several students said their apartment experienced its second flooding incident in less than a year Sunday.
Paul Tumulty, a senior government and politics major, could tell he and his roommates would need to do more than lay down towels after water began bubbling up from their toilet and flooding the bathroom. However, he said Residential Facilities was slow to respond even as he and his roommate made multiple calls to 4-WORK, and the flooding eventually spread to the common room.
“It was pretty insane,” Tumulty said. “Right under the table where we eat at, there was pretty much a lake of water.”
Residential Facilities did not respond to multiple calls and emails for comment.
The first employee who responded to the apartment presumed the toilet was just clogged, Tumulty said. However, he and his roommate John Brisentine, a senior history major, anticipated the situation could become just as severe as in September, when plumbing issues caused water to flow from both the toilet and showers into the common area.
As time went on and the water did not subside, the roommates continued their requests for immediate assistance from Residential Facilities, Tumulty said. During the second phone call, an employee told him the university could send a crew out on Monday morning.
“I was trying to communicate the gravity of the situation, make him realize it was an emergency,” Tumulty said. “If they didn’t get somebody over soon as they could, then it would be completely damaging. It could flood the whole room, ruin our living situation and possibly be not only detrimental to us for this semester, but could make it impossible for someone to live here next semester.”
After what they described as several fruitless calls, they asked a resident assistant to contact his supervisor. A Residential Facilities team arrived that night to solve the problem by stopping the sewage backup within the main plumbing and then vacuuming water and cleaning the apartment. The workers, who have visited the apartment often since the incident, also laundered the towels the roommates used to hold the water and installed “multiple, heavy-duty dehumidifiers” to dry the carpets.
“They did a good job,” Brisentine said. “Once they finally got here, that is.”
In September, when the roommates experienced a similar delay, maintenance workers left cleaning the bathroom up to the residents, Tumulty said.
“I think my impression from last semester was that they really dropped the ball a little bit,” he said.
On Sunday, better communication from the department would have eased the roommates’ stress, Brisentine added.
“We could have been kept in the loop more about what was happening to our place, maybe some details on what really was going on,” he said.
Leonardtown Community staff members have also checked in with the students following Sunday’s situation, said Leonardtown Resident Director Jacklyn Gentile. Clean, operational apartments are key to maintaining residents’ safety and security she said.
Tumulty and Brisentine are not alone in experiencing maintenance issues in Old Leonardtown, which is 41 years old. Sara Igielski said she and her roommates have unreliable heating and plumbing.
“If someone’s in the shower for more than 15 minutes, we run out of hot water,” the sophomore civil engineering major said.
Though Igielski isn’t worried about her own apartment flooding, she said the facilities seem outdated and plumbing issues are unsurprising.
“I know Leonardtown is gross, so it’s expected,” Igielski said. “But 4-WORK is really nice.”
Tumulty and Brisentine were thankful for the response overall, even though they will have to deal with damp carpets and a “wet dog” odor for the foreseeable future.
“I feel for all the people that had maybe had this happen,” Brisentine said. “Hopefully, none of this happens to anyone else.”
