Imagine this scenario: You arrive on campus to move in. You go up the stairs in your dorm, and right above the door to your new room there is an EXIT sign. On the door itself, there is a paddle that reads “Emergency Exit, alarm will sound.” Confused? I was.
Like many other students, I filled out an application for a summer swap. In mid-August, I got an email about a room change offer. It was for a single in South Campus, and I called Housing right away. I asked for the specifics and if there was anything extra I needed to know about the room.
The employees seemed to know everything — but they “forgot” to mention that the room does not lock. In fact, the room is not supposed to lock, because it is an emergency exit.
The room is part of a fire escape route: To get to the actual fire escape you would have to go through the room and out the window. Neither the door nor the window in the room locks. Outside, there is a balcony that connects to another building. Anyone could get in at any time.
Associate Housing Director Kathryn McGinn said the Housing Office doesn’t keep reports of where the other emergency exit rooms are throughout campus nor do they inform students about the situation of those rooms.
Luckily, I moved out of the room that cannot be locked — but now, someone else who was not told about the circumstances of the room lives there. And next year there will be another Boston University student caught by surprise. It is imperative that BU officials address the situation and don’t leave any doors “open” to additional opportunities for rapes and thefts.
In light of all the recent reports about thefts and assaults, how can BU charge students so much money for a room that does not even lock? BU claims to be concerned about student safety and it launched Safety Week — but at the same time, it lets students occupy emergency exit rooms that don’t have locks.
A three-year resident of the building in South said she had considered taking the single, but said the girl living there two years ago “strongly cautioned me against taking the room.”
During her first year, she said she heard the alarm going off about five times, but never checked to see what exactly happened.
“It’s not that loud,” she said. She added that the alarm sounds for only 30 seconds and it does not sound throughout the entire building. And I had to find that out from her and not the Office of Housing? Had I been told earlier I would not have taken that room, and I don’t think anyone else should.
When I was assigned to the room, I was given a list with instructions about the room: “The fire escape located outside this room is USED FOR EMERGENCIES ONLY,” the list said. “Thus, the steps in front of the fire escape window may not be blocked by your personal belongings in any way; also there must be a clear path from your door to the fire escape window at all times. Also, please do not open the fire escape window at any time other than an emergency; it is not for your personal use.”
The method for securing the room was also explained: “Your resident assistant will instruct the other members of your community to keep an active ‘neighborhood watch’ attitude, by personally investigating any alarm sound they might hear.”
A resident at the building in South says the emergency exit room had “never been addressed” at floor meetings until this year. How is this, if students should know about alternative exits for emergencies? What about the “neighborhood watch attitude” that was supposed to secure the room?
The list from the Housing Office explained how to “lock the door when you are leaving, once you are inside, and how to turn off the alarm.” But, the key I was given was only to prevent the alarm from going off. Anyone could go in at any time, but an alarm will sound without the key. The one-page instruction manual said, if “at any time the emergency egress door or alarm is not functioning properly, please call Emergency Facilities Management.” Facilities Management refused to disclose information about any reports in the past about the door or alarm not functioning properly.
The Office of Housing also eluded my questions. Assistant Director of Assignments Jennifer Bilbie-Alexander was trying to convince me that the room is safe when I clearly said I did not feel safe staying there. When I tried to reach the director of housing, Marc Robillard, he was always unavailable or busy. The current resident assistant in the South Campus residence refused to comment on the room.
For the first two weeks of school until I moved into another room, I did not stay, sleep or leave any of my stuff in the emergency exit room. BU is still charging me as if I had occupied the room. Even though I was told nothing has ever happened in the room, I did not want to be the first to have an incident there.
If you had a room you could not lock, would you stay in it?
It’s important that BU addresses this issue and that all students have the same ability to lock their doors.
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