The Lumberjack



Students Serving The Cal Poly Humboldt Campus and Community Since 1929

Tag: Dorms

  • Cal Poly Humboldt charges non-refundable $100 deposit to apply for on-campus dorms

    Cal Poly Humboldt charges non-refundable $100 deposit to apply for on-campus dorms

    by Christina Mehr and Jasmin Shirazian 

    If you were considering living on campus next year, submitting your housing application just got expensive. The university is now charging a $100 nonrefundable application fee to apply to live in student housing. While this application fee is nonrefundable, it does not ensure housing for students who apply.

    According to Cal Poly Humboldt housing, the $100 housing application fee is not an additional cost to students. It is treated as an initial deposit and is credited towards the housing and meal plan charges. 

    “We had to reinstate the application fee because we had too many students completing housing applications and holding spaces who weren’t serious about living on campus, preventing other students who did want to live on campus,” said Bria Kupras, a representative for Humboldt Housing & Residence Life. “Currently, the application fee is nonrefundable.”

    Once admitted into student housing, that $100 deposit will go to housing and meal plans. 

    For those students who are Pell Grant eligible, with verification from financial aid, they could receive a waiver. If a student is struggling to come up with the payment, another option would be the short-term loan program through Student Financial Services.

    Skylar Rawitch is a first-year psychology major living in the Cypress dorms.

    “The fee has definitely gotten me thinking about the worth of it,” Rawitch said. “I don’t think that it is fair, especially because the payment fee does not guarantee you housing. If it was optional to pay and guaranteed you housing… I may feel differently.” 

    “Submit your online application and pay the $100 nonrefundable application fee. The $100 will be applied to the housing and meal plan charges, unless the application is canceled where the application fee will be forfeited,” the university’s official housing website states.

    The application fee seems to be an incentive for applicants to only apply if they are seriously considering living on campus.

    “How is it in the best interest of a school that’s supposed to take care of their students and keep them safe to charge them even more when people already are struggling to afford it?” Rawitch said. “They aren’t getting the money back if they do not get housing, and for some people that $100 could be gas money, grocery money, etc., and they would be losing out on that because they were applying for something that [isn’t] guaranteed.”

    Emma Sundberg is a molecular and cellular biology major in their first year at Humboldt. They currently live in Campus Apartments. 

    “I think it’s awful having us pay more to apply when we already have to pay so much,” Sundberg said. “There is no need to spend money on an application.”

    Jess Carey, a biology major in their junior year, has also faced obstacles due to the fee. The application fee has deterred them from applying despite needing it due to housing insecurity over the summer. 

    “I understand that the whole point is to allow the school to get a more accurate idea of how many students to plan for,” Carey said. “But on the other hand, creating yet another barrier to accessible housing stretches the already weak trust of the students in our administration to meet our needs and encourage a livable, desirable college experience. My trust in the administration has been damaged even more from this situation.”

    Kimberly Alexsandra, a sophomore journalism major, has experienced the dorms of varying communities on campus. 

    “I could see why the application fee is necessary, due to the chaos created by the projected overflow of students that applied for housing last spring that didn’t end up attending, which left the school with a worse rep and vacant dorms,” Aleksandra said. “$100 right out of pocket is too much for me and I’m sure others could relate, and for it to be nonrefundable is crazy. As a student who’s lived on campus for two years in different locations, I really don’t think anything about on campus housing is realistically credible enough for a nonrefundable application fee to be needed just to apply.” 

  • Students struggle with moldy dorms

    by Dezmond Remington

    Originally printed April 26, 2023

    Pink, yellow, black and blue—these aren’t the colors of the rainbow, but they are the colors of bathrooms, kitchens and showers in dorms all over campus as residents attempt to deal with the mold that almost inevitably springs up in Arcata’s damp climate. 

    Experiences vary; when Environmental Science major Elizabeth Lachman moved into her dorm in Campus Apartments last year, she noticed what looked to her like spores in her ceiling that eventually made bubbles in the plaster. 

    “The ceiling was kind of rotting,” Lachman said. “It came from a leak above me, and it took a while for the school to come out and actually fix and make repairs to it.” 

    The side of Campus Apartments that faces the library, where Lachman lived, is particularly susceptible to being moldy. The only windows that allow the sun to get into the rooms are the sliding glass doors that only offer privacy when the blinds are shut. The small amount of sun that does make it to that side is often shut out by the blinds. 

    Lachman also struggled with food molding after only a few days in her kitchen, a problem she blames on the room. 

    “In no other occurrences have I gotten groceries and they’ve gone bad so fast,” Lachman said. “Not only [did] I feel like I was breathing gross air, but I felt like I was wasting money because I kept buying food and it kept getting all moldy and gross.”

    Shower mold was also a problem for Lachman as well as many people in the dorms. Another student, Robyn Pedersen, lives in Creekview and often brawls with mold in the vents in the ceiling of the bathroom, as well as on the walls. No matter what product he uses, whether it’s the university-provided mold killer, vinegar, bleach, or any other chemical concoction, nothing gets rid of it entirely. 

    “It’s a daily task,” Pedersen said. “You get in there and you see different types of mold growing around the bathtub, so you have to get down on your hands and knees and scrub, but the stuff that grows in the tile and on the ground is a lot harder to get into, so you really got to really spray it down and get in there with a scrub brush. It takes a lot of elbow grease, but even that doesn’t get rid of it all.”

    Mold in the lockers in shower rooms is also widespread. Business major Gino Grier, who lived in Tan Oak last year, said there was a lot of gray mold growing behind the paint in every locker in the shower room on his floor. It smelled like spoiled milk and despite his best efforts, as well as the toils of everyone else on his floor, it never went away. He also had to clean out mold in his bedroom, but that went away with some vinegar. 

    Almost universally, every student that has had to deal with mold has done it alone. Despite pleas to the Housing or Maintenance departments, students are left to their own devices when it comes to dealing with mold. When Pedersen, his roommates and even residents in other dorms in Creekview complained to the school, the only help they were offered was a flyer about mold prevention that Pedersen said was completely unhelpful. 

    “It’s really disappointing,” Pedersen said, “because you really wouldn’t expect this from college living when you’re paying so much to live in these dorms.”

    Lachman had a similar experience. The only assistance she was given was a list of cleaning products that she would have to buy herself. 

    “I just felt like they didn’t really care,” Lachman said. “[They said] ‘these are the things you can do to help yourself,’ but it’s literally you investing into products to clean their room. I’m not going to get any of that money back. I just wish they would have supplied me with more help.”

    Grier feels the same—cheated. 

    “I’d prefer it if they gave a shit,” Grier said. “I wish they weren’t seeing students as dollar signs. Mold isn’t very expensive to fix in the [beginning], but once it gets bad, it’s incredibly costly. And the fact that they ignore that problem and just let it do whatever is kind of concerning.”

  • Recent break in at the campus apartments leads to questions of safety of the Cal Poly Humboldt dorms

    Recent break in at the campus apartments leads to questions of safety of the Cal Poly Humboldt dorms

    by Alina Ferguson

    During the summer of 2022, a unit of the campus apartment complex was broken into. The police were able to find and arrest the burglar. Executive Director of Auxiliary Operations Stephen St. Onge explained that the units were unoccupied during the break in and no students were harmed. 

    “Unfortunately when the Campus Apartments are not occupied, they become a target,” St. Onge said. 

    The Campus Apartments were not originally part of the campus. According to St. Onge, the building was bought to build infrastructure. 

    “The purchase of Campus Apartments, it was going to be for temporary housing,” St. Onge said. “Then the building was gonna be taken down and then an academic building was going to be put there.”

     Due to its origins, the building is outward facing, easily accessible from the footbridge that leads to Arcata. There is no gate and the doors to the bedrooms are what people see first.  These apartments do not use a key card to get in. Instead, they use a physical key issued to each student. 

     St. Onge mentioned that there is a rather robust camera system set up in the complex, lined with over 400 cameras.

    “We spent over 1.2 million dollars on a very robust security system, every entrance to every residence building has a camera on it,” St. Onge said. “If you go to Campus Apartments, I think it’s about 400 cameras.” 

     The surveillance system on campus can track someone’s whereabouts through the whole campus. 

    “If I could pull up a camera, you could see how detailed those things are,” St. Onge said. “You’re wearing a gray sweater vest right? So we could type into the search parameters, female, brown hair, gray sweater vest and they will- boop boop boop, and you put in a time parameter, and we could walk you across campus.” 

    Other campus housings has camera systems, and College Creek has a gate system. Access to the College Creek dormitory door requires first going through a locked gate. Then, there is an additional key to get into the actual apartment. The system of electric keys makes it safer to live at the apartments. If you lose or misplace your key, you can get it deactivated, which means even if someone picks it up, it cannot be used to gain access into your apartment, unlike the physical keys used for the campus apartments. 

    Since there are plans to demolish the Campus Apartments and replace them between the years of 2028 and 2029, there are no plans to install new safety features in the worn out building. All of the safety measures for Campus Apartments are reactionary safety measures, while other dorms have preemptive safety measures. 

    Jared Van Der Loo, a student at Cal Poly Humboldt, lives at Campus Apartments with three other male students. He said the apartment gets hot and stuffy, and often they will have to leave the screen and the door open, even at night. He said he thinks adding additional measures that other campus dorms have could improve the safety of the Campus Apartments. 

    “I feel somewhat safe in the campus apartments,” Van Der Loo said. “With there being four guys I think we can look out for one another. I also think safety from mold could be improved.” 

    Another student, Ralph Valle, who lives on the third floor of the Campus Apartments, said he personally does feel safe, but as he knows there have been incidents at the school, he is very weary.

    “In my mind I have been prepared for any weirdness,” Valle said. “Almost like a PTSD thing where I am ready to jump if someone tries to get in while I’m inside.” 

  • Lack of communication between maintenance and students leads to awkward moments in the Cal Poly Humboldt dorms

    by Alina Ferguson

    Submitting a maintenance request is a mysterious process here at Cal Poly Humboldt. The procedure goes something like this: submit a request and two weeks later, someone will bang loudly on your door. Do you get confirmation emails? Not in my experience. 

    Unlike other rent-paying, contracting-holding people, students do not get full tenant rights, which normally stipulate 24 hour notice before repairs. My complaint is not with the maintenance staff, but rather with the lack of a system for notifying students about maintenance in their dorm.

    Last semester, my roommate was coming up the hill to Creekview and saw some man in our room! Naturally, she was freaked out—who was this strange man, and why was he in our room? As it turns out, he was there to fix the window. 

    I worked online from my dorm every Saturday from 9 am to 1 pm, and one day someone barged into my room during a work call to “fix the lights.” I asked if it needed to be done at that exact moment, and the maintenance man responded with “yeah.” So, inconvenienced and with all my other roommates still sleeping, I did an hour of work in my bathroom. My laptop was precariously perched on the toilet, my phone was scrunched against my ear and my shoulder, and I was sitting cross legged for an hour. My feet fell asleep, so I had to crawl back to my room like some horror movie villain, hair in my face and phone in my mouth, grunting from the pinpricks in my feet. 

    This semester, I submitted a request to put a bar across my top bunk. A week later, someone banged on our front door while my roommate was taking a nap and my housemates were out. What could we do? Well, he said he would come back in half an hour, and an hour later, he was back. 

    Though, it’s not always that they take weeks. My roommates and I put in a request for our microwave and electrical outlet to be fixed and that same day, someone arrived. I came home to the door ajar and the microwave disassembled like a butcher had just gone to town on it, tools scattered across the countertop. I tiptoed to my room, and my roommate muttered, “Maintenance is here to fix the microwave and electrical.” I asked if she had gotten an email or call beforehand, and of course the answer was no.

    The maintenance team themselves are not at fault. The staff here do a brilliant job; they work efficiently and are always friendly. They work hard to make sure that all our requests are fulfilled and they do an excellent job of repairing whatever is broken. 

    But I have some ideas to improve the maintenance process. There needs to be a system for alerting students to maintenance work in their living spaces. Normally, as a tenant, someone who pays rent and has a rental contract, you are entitled to 24 hours notice when anyone is entering your unit or room for non-emergencies. Student tenants should be granted the same courtesy. I pay to live here, and I signed a contract; we all did. 

    Sending an email is all it takes. Just send me an email with the name of the maintenance worker, the approximate time they will arrive, and what they will be fixing. While I understand that there are a lot of students here, I believe we need more communication between dorm residents and staff. It is about respect for both the students and maintenance staff. 

  • Dorm-made kombucha is a thing

    Dorm-made kombucha is a thing

    A funky, moldy belch clings desperately to the humid air, evoking a similar funk to a brewery.

    Will Suiter, 18, is an amateur chemist and kombucha connoisseur. He makes kombucha in his HSU dorm room.

    Kombucha, as many of us Humboldt dwellers know, is a trendy probiotic drink brewed with the help of “symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast” (SCOBY), similar to the “mother” found in apple cider vinegars.

    The SCOBY appears much like an agar found in a petri dish or perhaps a somewhat slender jellyfish. It houses millions of bacterial colonies that help cultivate kombucha, as well as protecting the elixir from “bad” bacteria that could contaminate it.

    The process itself is deceptively simple, but Suiter says that each nuance in flavor and carbonation is deliberately cultivated from many failed batches.

    “Kombucha is brewed just like wine or beer,” Suiter said. “But instead of just yeast, it’s brewed with bacteria that converts sugar into acid instead of alcohol”.

    Consumers can flavor the beverage any way they want during fermentation.

    “The base of it is essentially a sweet tea,” Suiter said. “Once it’s brewed in a large jar, I add flavorings like ginger, blackberry juice or lemon peels… and transfer it to bottles.”

    Once it’s in the bottles, Suiter lets the kombucha ferment a little bit longer, “which creates carbon dioxide that pressurizes the bottles and makes the kombucha fizzy.”

    Explosion is pretty common, which is due to over-filling the containers or an excess of carbonation when a batch has been fermented for too long.

    “Since I actually brew a lot of kombucha, I have several large glass jars I brew the base tea in so I can reduce risk of everything exploding,” Suiter said.

    The process itself requires several tools that just about anyone can pick up at their local hardware store.

    “Kombucha is really good for you,” Suiter said. “It has tons of vitamin B and probiotics from the bacteria we introduced, which are healthy for your gut.”

    The drink pairs well with a multitude of snacks.

    Suiter said his favorite meal is a “fat slice of pizza with a big glass of some sour kombucha.”

    So if you are in the mood to experience a rather funky new drink, help out your digestive system or follow a trend, maybe reach for a bottle of kombucha.