From floods to fires to mold, residents within Palo Verde East, Hassayampa Academic Village, Best Hall and Tooker House have reported facing a plethora of struggles with their living conditions.
Palo Verde East
Palo Verde East, built in 1963, houses over 300 students in the northern area of the Tempe campus.
In August, students in Palo Verde East were evacuated and relocated for the weekend due to a fire.
READ MORE: Update: Palo Verde East reopens after reported fire displaces students over weekend
Others reported struggling with dorm conditions throughout the school year. Lily Dang, a Palo Verde East resident and a freshman studying biomedical sciences, moved rooms due to a flood in her bathroom.
"It was the shower; the water just kept coming out," Dang said. "So we contacted maintenance and then they just decided to move us."
Within Palo Verde, residents were unable to access warm water for about a week. Other times, water was cut off completely, with the reasoning being unsure according to Dang.
"Maybe like a month or two ago the water every single day would be freezing cold no matter how hot you turned it up," said Kamoana Easley, a Palo Verde East resident and a freshman studying political science.
Multiple students reported broken air conditioning, which lasted for a few months.
"When the AC broke, it was blowing so cold and so hard while I was trying to sleep," Easley said. "I would always wake up with a sore throat in the morning. So pretty much the whole entirety of October to November, I was sick, but I was never feeling very well."
Best Hall
On April 4, at around 11 p.m., an unknown object struck a window on the north side of Best Hall. Bella Camarillo, Best Hall resident and a freshman studying business, said she and her roommate instantly thought they heard a gunshot.
"We ran into the hallway because we didn't know if somebody was shooting and if they were going to keep shooting at the window or the wall," Camarillo said. "We wanted to get as far away from it as possible."
Camarillo's window was shattered but still intact from the impact. The event resulted in her roommate moving into a different room from feeling unsafe.
Maintenance is planning to fully repair the window next Monday, nearly 22 days after the incident.
"I don't feel unsafe. I would have moved rooms with my roommate if I felt unsafe, but it's just a nuisance," Camarillo said. "I kind of wish at this point that they would have just waited until we moved out to fix it because now they're fixing it during finals week."
Camarillo said maintenance had to wait to fully repair the window because they would have to expose the asbestos — a toxic mineral used in building materials before it was considered harmful — from the caulking.
Camarillo said that after maintenance comes next Monday, they will have to wait the following day to insert the glass because it comes from a separate company.
Best Hall is at 1215 S Forest Ave., the same street shared by Gammage and next to where the ASU shuttles drop off students.
"It's just irritating," said Camarillo. "But I guess it is what it is."
Camarillo has also encountered problems with WiFi and air conditioning in her dorm. She said the WiFi was consistently bad throughout the school year, and her community assistant reported it to maintenance earlier in the year.
"(Maintenance) was super unhelpful to her," said Camarillo. "They asked her to go and try to pick the lock of the WiFi box or something and try to fix it herself."
She said she hoped maintenance would be more supportive through processes like broken windows and WiFi because the building is so old and needs constant attention.
"I have a lot of fond memories here – but it's old," said Camarillo.
Tooker House
Then there is Tooker House, home to nearly 1,600 students, which deals with constant fire alarms. On April 19, an electrical fire broke out on the third floor of the dorm complex.
Bailey Alex, a Tooker House resident and a student studying mechanical engineering, said she kept count of how many fire alarms went off in the current semester, and the amount totaled 24.
Gracelynn Kastler, a freshman studying electrical engineering and another Tooker House resident, said that alarms will sometimes go off multiple times a night.
Many residents took the fire alarm seriously after seeing fire trucks and police.
READ MORE: Students evacuate Tooker House after reported fire
Hassayampa Academic Village
Hassayampa Academic Village found its place in ASU's catalog of residential housing on campus in 2007. The village, according to students, currently faces issues with appliances and mold.
"The vents, like you can see the mold coming out of them," said Rory Wood, Hassayampa Academic Village resident and a freshman studying business communication. "I've heard a lot of people say that they have coughs and stuff just from living in Hassay. There's just a lot of mold everywhere."
Wood said that there is a hole in the ceiling of her communal shower that drips, which ends in flooding every time she takes a shower.
Olivia Lajoie, a Hassayampa Academic Village resident and a freshman studying business, said that she also has seen mold lining the bottom of her floor's shower. She said that it ends up leaving students with coughs.
Dev Deshmukh, a Hassayampa Academic Village resident and a freshman studying finance, said that he has also been fined a large amount of money for things out of his control, leading to his housing costs becoming a burden, an issue that Woods also faced.
"Whenever there's trash or anything in the building on the floor, they don't know who did it, so they charge everyone on the floor," Wood said. "So I've had random $100 charges for stuff that I didn't even do. We could probably argue and prove that we didn't do it, but it's like, why are they gonna believe us?"
"Personally, I'm living off-campus next year," said Wood.
Edited by Alfred Smith III, Sadie Buggle and Grace Copperthite.
Reach the reporters at gheadle@asu.edu and sjames51@asu.edu and follow @George_Headley7 and @sennajames_ on X.
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Senna is a sophomore studying journalism and mass communication with a minor in Spanish. This is her third semester with The State Press.
George is a sophomore studying journalism and mass communication. This is his third semester with The State Press. He has also worked at Times Media Group.
