By Anneliese Heyder, Stentorian Editor-in-Chief
Editor’s Note: This article was initially planned to be published in October 2024.
Many will remember the shocking events of the past month involving the school’s ventilation system–the mold growth in the Hunt maintenance room. However, this isn’t the first mold incident in residential buildings; students have something to say about it.
Ellie Murphy ‘25 recounted her experience, beginning at Move-In Day. “My roommate and I had mold growing on our desk chairs, 3 ceiling tiles, our closet door, and sides of our desks,” she said. “The problems were ‘fixed’ by maintenance by spray painting over the ceiling tiles and wiping down the furniture.”
Murphy isn’t the only one whose hopes for maintenance repairs have been disappointing. Brandon Yang ‘25 expressed that Hunt has “fallen into complete disrepair”.
“I’ve gotten used to seeing problems on hall, such as our landing door failing to unlock and broken lights in our hallways, knowing that they’ll take months to get fixed despite submitting work orders,” he said.
Yang includes that he “understands minor inconveniences are bound to arise in a building that is over 30 years old” but is disappointed that the administration has chosen to ignore the mold growth in the HVAC system, prioritizing “marketing and branding.”
It’s true–NCSSM’s buildings are over 30 years old, the last modification being in 1980. Structural issues are bound to arise, and most students understand that NCSSM isn’t a new building with the latest architectural and engineering designs. The frustration is the lack of response, lack of action, and lack of improvement. Students live here for nine months–the last thing they want is to be breathing in mold, finding it on their chairs and in their clothes.
“Our room is so humid that our towels never dry and mold has grown on different personal items. When we returned from fall break, 5 or so ceiling tiles had mold growing of different colors and we put in a request for a dehumidifier to fix the issue,” Murphy stated.
Some students have taken things into their own hands. Petri dishes and at-home mold tests were created and passed around. After the video leaked of the mold growth in Hunt, some students were determined to find out for themselves what was really going on. Cameron Shue ‘25 explained his choice to investigate.
“I obtained a petri dish from my friend and I swabbed my air vent and the chipping paint in the corner of my room,” he said. “I checked it a couple of days later after forgetting about it and the petri dish was full of black mold!”
Mold isn’t the only black substance that students have discovered. Lola Larsen, ‘25 recounts her experience with a mysterious black liquid on 1st Beall. She told me she was sitting in the hallway when “this black liquid started dripping from the ceiling”. She described it as “matte black and thick, like oil”. When she requested maintenance, they found much more in the ceiling; maintenance determined it was black water caused by mold and humidity. When asked how she felt she stated “It was a very strange and concerning experience. It makes me wonder how many years that liquid had been sitting up there for the water to turn matte black.”
Students want their voices heard and taken seriously–they want transparency and actions that show the school is truly taking in their concerns and using all their resources to find a solution. It seems that Murphy spoke the mind of the student body when she declared, “This experience has been unpleasant, to say the least.”
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