Despite Efforts, Students Still Live in Unsafe Housing

Every college student knows the typical "college" house. It's the one with a dizzying array of beer cans, bicycles and random shoes strewn on the front lawn. In spring, the "college" house will have students sitting on couches, slowly getting drunk without a care in the world. From afar, it may look innocuous - a little paint peeling, perhaps plastic tarps over the windows, multiple cars in the driveway. However annoying these houses are to the neighbors, there is evidence that many students may live in unsafe housing.

In the past three years, there have been three separate incidents, two involving College students. In the spring of 1998, two Oberlin residents, a 12-year old girl and her grandmother, were killed in a fire that consumed their house. In a stroke of luck, a College student was awakened by her alarm clock in the midst of smoke and heat. In a separate incident, some College students lost their honors research and other material possessions to a fire.

Though the College has attempted to crack down on unsafe rooming houses, attempting to enact a city code requiring smoke detectors to be hardwired into the electrical circuitry, they've faced opposition from landlords within the town.

In response to a letter issued to the Oberlin community in March, 1998 in which President Nancy Dye said, "No Oberlin students should live in unsafe housing," and then listed Oberlin properties that had failed inspection, a group of landlords led by David Sonner sued the College for defamation.

Though there have been no fires in Oberlin since 1998, the problem of students living in unsafe housing remains. Despite city codes that require a yearly fire inspection, there are some students who feel that these are not thorough enough.

In one incident at a large rooming house on West College Street, a six-inch depression appeared in the living room floor, cracking three of the basement floor joists after a dance party. The floor joists, which run perpendicular to the main floor beam and take stress off the main beam, dangled dangerously above electrical wiring.

One resident, a junior who asked not to be named said, "We were really lucky that the party ended when it did because if we had any more weight on the floor, it would've sunk even lower and we might've had a fire on our hands."

Another resident of the house, a junior who asked not to be named said, "What gets me about this whole situation is that if our house had had proper inspection, it never would've happened. It's obvious that not all of those cracks were caused by our party. We were left to face something which could have been a serious tragedy."

Although the floor joists have been stabilized with jacks, and the depression evened out - at the expense of the bathroom floor, which is gradually sinking into the basement - some residents of the house express concern that their house is less than stable. One said, "Though I know that many old houses have jacks as an extra measure of support, I'm more worried about how long the landlord was planning on letting us live in a house that was not safe, even for students. I find it disturbing that we were not notified, even when he knew about the cracks three weeks before the party. It was a poor use of judgement."

Though this is just one example of unsafe housing for College students, it seems clear more thorough inspections need to be conducted for the safety of all Oberlin residents.