Students find mouldy walls and dirty rooms in GMB accommodation

Accommodation services have failed to act despite numerous emails

Trinity students who moved into their on-campus accommodation in the Graduates’ Memorial Building (GMB) at the start of this year were disappointed to find damaged furniture, unclean rooms and mould growing on the walls. 

One student currently staying in the GMB told Trinity News that his room was “filthy” when he first moved in. He said that he found mould growing on the walls which was “obviously concerning” and made him worry for his health because he has “known people that have gotten sick from mould in their rooms”. 

The Senior Sophister Law student added that “the carpets are completely stained, the wall was covered in hand marks and fake tan” and that the “paint is falling off the walls in places” and there were “massive rips in the furniture”.

The resident explained that he had contacted the accommodation service when he first moved in, now three weeks ago, and had to send a follow-up email before he received a response. When he did receive a response it was referring him on to Trinity’s estates and facilities department, who then referred him back to accommodation services, who have yet to deal with the issue. 

He says that “nobody has even come to look to see what they are going to do”.

College did not respond to a request for comment from Trinity News at the time of publication. 

Under the Housing (Standards for Rented Houses) Regulations 2017 statutory instrument, Trinity has a legal obligation to ensure that any rented rooms are in a proper state of structural repair, including being free from “dampness”.     

The resident says that given the amount he is paying the situation is “really annoying”. He adds that “you hear all the horror stories from private rented accommodation but you expect the university where you are studying to treat you a little better and for things to be in a basic state of repair.”

From his experience working in a hotel over the summer, he said the things that Trinity had failed to do were “basic things that we would do every second day” in a hotel. For example, he says that “behind the beds were covered in dirt where they had never hoovered around them”.

He added that many of his flatmates have had similarly unsatisfactory experiences:

“One girl said there were boxers left under her bed” and “some of the cushions that she got were dirty and marked and she had to bring them to residences to say ‘I’m not having these in my room.’”

Another of the residents told Trinity News that there is mould on the ceiling of his bathroom. 

Henry Perillo, a postgraduate Environmental Sciences student, said that the main issue for him was that in the kitchen, many of the belongings of tourists and the food that they had left behind had not been removed. He stated that he would “have liked to have seen the kitchen be cleaned” before moving in.

Perillo suggests that “if [College] closed the GMB down a week before students moved in and used that time to clean everything out I think that would be a much better system”. 

A years rent in the GMB is €8,200. The rooms are ensuite, with a shared kitchen and living space.

 

Finn Purdy

Finn Purdy is the current Deputy Editor of Trinity News. He is a Junior Sophister English Studies student, and a former News Editor and Assistant News Editor.