Students seek relief from mold in campus housing

Condry Denison is tired of having to live with mold in his campus residence hall. The junior from Orlando resides in the Living Learning Center or LLC housing complex on campus. "They cleaned most of the mold, but my roommate and I still have mold in the shower," Denison said. "We have to clean the shower at least twice a week in order to keep the mold from continuously growing, which is hard because mold grows in moist areas." Mold has been an ongoing issue in residence halls around campus this school year. Since the fall semester began, many students have reported having issues with mold and mildew in their rooms. The LLC, an upperclassman dorm, seems to be particularly hard hit. The building is comprised of three different sections of rooms on each floor, two elevators, lounge areas and outside restrooms on each floor. Students pay $4,456 to live there, compared to Phase I and Lee Rhyant, which both cost about $400 more. The building is about 30 years old and the air quality of the building is one of the main issues with the residence hall, according to Mold, meanwhile, has been blamed for a death of a student at the University of Maryland College Park campus in November 2018. The student died from complications from adenovirus and "her family is questioning whether the university - which has seen several cases of the illness - could have done more to prevent her death and whether it was related to a mold outbreak in some dorms," according to The Baltimore Sun. The girl reportedly had been sick since early in the fall semester, when she first developed a cough. Her condition worsened and she contracted pneumonia, the Sun said. After leaving school, she was taken to the emergency room multiple times before she died at Johns Hopkins Hospital, her father Ian Paregol, told the newspaper.