AUSTIN, Texas – Rise at West Campus is an apartment complex that’s advertised as luxury student living, but residents say it’s anything but.
A majority of the building’s residents are students at the University of Texas at Austin. Several students living at Rise say they’ve gone days without running water — and they say this is not the first time this issue has occurred.
What they’re saying:
“This is actually the second time this month,” said Matthew Resendez, a student at UT Austin. “People haven’t had hot water on the lower floors for the entire semester.”
Numerous students residing in the complex say the conditions they are living in are unsanitary and unsafe.
Heading into finals season, these students have been unable to wash dishes and do laundry, and instead of focusing on studying, they’ve been figuring out creative ways to take showers, including going to friends’ apartments, using gym showers and making do with what they have.
“I should have been studying, and I’m worrying about taking a shower like I was taking sink showers,” said UT Austin student Alexandra Connors. “It’s third world sanitation here at this building.”
Without water, residents say neither the air conditioning nor the toilets are functional.
“People were sitting in their apartments with feces and vomit in their toilets for days,” said Connors. “I had to teach my friends how to manually flush a toilet, which is absolutely ridiculous.”
Students say communication with property management has been inconsistent. Some were told the water would be back on at different times that have since come and gone, with no resolution. Others say they received no response at all to multiple emails and phone calls to building management.
Amid these issues, students say management has provided no concessions on rent, nor have they offered alternative accommodations or even provided water bottles.
“We had to go get gallons of water. We can’t wash dishes, so we’re getting frozen meals to put in the microwave,” said Connors. “I think today I probably spent almost $100 on getting things because I have no idea how long this is going to last.”
While the lack of water is the most dire issue residents have dealt with, they say it’s not the only problem.
On Sunday afternoon, clogged toilets overflowed in common area restrooms, and a burst pipe spewed dirty water and pieces of ceiling onto cars in the parking garage. Additionally, residents say some doors don’t properly shut or lock, and amenities are out of service.
Students say even in emergencies, building staff are not available. One student told FOX 7 of an incident where his roommate suffered a medical emergency, and after waiting for staff to respond, other residents had to break down his unit door to assist his roommate while awaiting first responders.
“I called the maintenance line like I’m calling them right now; you guys need to go to my room. My roommate’s having a medical emergency,” said UT Austin student Shelby Harwood. “I finally got an answer, and they said that there was no one here, and they would send someone. My friends had to resort to kicking my door down after 30 minutes of waiting, and my roommate could not get up off the ground.”
Following the incident, Harwood says his door is still broken.
“My door is still broken to this day, after countless maintenance requests to go fix my front door,” said Harwood. “There’s still like the frame of the door is completely broken, and I still have issues with, I feel like safety. I feel like anyone could just open my door.”
In Texas, after tenants give written notice requesting a repair, landlords are given a “reasonable” time to fix the issue. A “reasonable” time is defined in the Texas State Property Code as seven days.
If the issue is not addressed after that point, tenants can sue their landlord both to make the needed repairs and for damages. Or they can choose to terminate their lease.
But with limited resources and difficulty finding housing close to campus, some students living at Rise say they feel stuck.
“I think they definitely are taking advantage of us because we are students at UT,” said Resendez. “We don’t really have anything to our name, so how are we going to have the power to do anything?”
The other side:
FOX 7 reached out to Article Student Living, the company that manages the building, and received the following statement from Scott Manning, Senior Vice President of Operations:
“We can confirm that we have been experiencing a water outage. Multiple vendors have been on-site working toward full restoration for several days. As of this afternoon, cold water service has been successfully restored to all units. Hot water service will be restored once our system is fully pressurized, and we have vendors on site this evening working to complete the process. This update was communicated to residents as well. We are actively working through individual resident concerns and work orders.
We sincerely appreciate the patience of our residents during this interruption in water service to the building. Our team will continue to provide updates to residents and field work orders as we receive them.”
The Source: Information comes from reporting/interviews by FOX 7 Austin’s Bryanna Carroll