Gavin Vondercrone

Editor-in-Chief

Over the last month, the University Ridge, East Stroudsburg University’s very own apartment complex, has been an absolute train wreck. From mushy brown snow piles and floods to power outages and fire alarms, the Ridge has not been properly prepared for the Winter elements of the Pocono Mountains.

The first of the Ridge’s many mishaps came during the aftermath of a snowstorm that brought over 12 inches of snow to East Stroudsburg on January 25. Unlike other apartment complexes, which tend to instruct residents to move their cars at certain times to help with snow removal, the Ridge did not have any plan whatsoever to help residents clear out their vehicles.

As a result all car owners at the Ridge were left to shovel multiple feet of snow in an absolute free-for-all. The freedom of one car would often come to the detriment of another, as people would take whatever snow they shoveled from their pile and hurl it onto the powdery prison walls surrounding the car next to them. If you didn’t hurry to shovel out your car as soon as possible, odds are, you found yourself staring at a two-foot pile of snow while the neighboring car was scot-free.

I myself had to help shovel my roommate’s car for over an hour on two separate occasions because someone (you know who you are) decided to push all of the snow blocking their car back in front of my roommate’s.

Not only was the parking lot an absolute nightmare, but multiple areas of sidewalks and walkways were covered in ice for days at a time. These spots of ice, with no wet floor signs might I add, posed a great threat to the safety of all Ridge residents. I have nearly slipped and face-planted on a few sections of ice behind building five multiple times.

“The courtyard, the sidewalks, nothing was plowed. Nothing was salted, absolutely at all,” said University Ridge resident Lilianna Kelly.

These slippery, dangerous walkways were a direct result of improper shoveling and salting, and weren’t even taken care of unless maintenance was directly notified.

“Classes started up again, and nothing was done. People were slipping and falling all over the place,” said Kelly. “I ended up calling housing myself to mention that people were potentially getting hurt. 20 minutes later, maintenance was outside plowing, shoveling and salting.”

Then, on February 2, the flood gates quite literally opened. In a room on the bottom floor of building five, a pipe burst, flooding the room and part of the bottom floor’s hallway as well. Residents in the room were quickly transferred over to emergency housing.

My condolences also go out to the residents across the hall of this current construction site. While they may not have been evacuated, they have since had to endure the whirring of multiple industrial fans, continuous construction and a pungent, sewage-like smell that plagued the entire building for a few days.

Those industrial fans were quickly put to use some place else, however. As the clock struck midnight on February 9, lightning struck twice. The central fire alarms for both buildings five and six began blaring an unsynchronized symphony following an opening in building six’s main pipeline.

This flood, having been much bigger than the first, flooded the building’s entire bottom floor, sent eight more residents into emergency housing and left a giant ice trail that spread all the way out into the second row of the parking lot.

Extremely cold temperatures like the ones seen during this week do pose a great risk to any building’s piping and plumbing systems, as seen with these two floods. Floods in individual rooms aren’t rare by any means, but when the main pipeline of an entire building bursts open, the structural integrity of all buildings with the same design and the safety of the residents within them needs to be called into question.

To cap off this nightmare of a week, on the morning of February 10, the entirety of the University Ridge lost power. The outage, which lined up perfectly with my morning shower, left over 500 residents without electricity for multiple hours.

These mishaps are putting the safety of residents at risk and affecting their abilities to succeed academically. ESU faculty have also begun to recognize the affects these conditions have had on students.

“I’ve been teaching at ESU since 2006, and several times in the last four or five years, I’ve had students report quality of life issues at the Ridge. Flooding, anti-social behavior and things that seem below the dignity of what we should offering to our students,” said Bill Broun, Professor of English at ESU. “At least a couple times, students have missed classes because of this stuff.”

This series of unfortunate events could be chalked up to a “rough stretch” or incredibly poor timing, however, that is simply not the case. Since the start of this academic year (August 2025) the Ridge has been a complete debacle.

From improper cleaning over the Summer to appliances that do everything besides their designated function, here is a list of the problems that have occurred in my apartment (located in building five) alone:

1. Upon arrival, mysterious brown stains marked the ceilings of the living room and one of the bathrooms. During cleaning, the maintenance worker claimed he had “no idea what they could be,” and then proceeded to attack the room with a number of chemical substances.
2. The refrigerator, provided by ESU, constantly leaks water all over the bottom shelf, creating a giant puddle that soaks any item placed there. This is in spite of numerous attempts by maintenance to fix the fridge.
3. That same fridge freezes anything placed on the top shelf if the temperature is turned down ever so slightly. This sweeping chill also freezes the aforementioned lagoon on the bottom shelf, trapping any items down below in an frostbitten prison.
4. One of the stove tops was detached entirely upon arrival. It has since be reattached (by a neighbor, not maintenance), but is incapable of conducting any form of heat.
5. The belt on the room’s washing machine snapped off, forcing my three roommates and I to drag our laundry all the way down to Hemlock Suites for an entire week. Maintenance then proceeded to order the wrong kind of belt, making us wait even longer.
6. The faucet of one of the bathroom sinks kept leaking water even when turned off. The maintenance worker sent to fix it cut his hand open during the process, leaving some blood behind when the job was finished.
7. Two lights in the building’s main hallway shut off completely about a week ago. They are still off as of the publication of this article.
8. While this isn’t necessarily an issue my room dealt with, my neighbors across the hall did not have a working A/C unit during the hot months of August, September and October. Yes, outdoor temperatures did reach 80 degrees in October.

This list doesn’t even include other issues found around the entire Ridge such as safety lights being out of order, trash constantly overflowing dumpsters, the shuttle only running for a grand total of six hours over the weekend or an entire Pop-Tart that has been resting on a windowsill in building five since late September.

While the idea of “high quality” isn’t necessarily associated with college housing, functioning appliances and resident safety are a responsibility of the University. A room at the University Ridge costs $5,225 a semester ($10,450 for an entire academic year), making it the fourth-most expensive room offered at ESU. When more money is paid for a place of living, is it not reasonable to hold that said place to higher standards? Is it crazy for me to complain about not these standards not being met when I’m currently paying to stay in one of the more expensive housing options ESU has to offer?

Ultimately, in my opinion, the University Ridge’s problems stem from rushed construction and a lack of care. The buildings almost feel like “beta” versions of what a complex should be: They provide the basic necessities, but have major durability concerns, especially in cold conditions they should be adeptly prepared for.

Staying at the Ridge does come with a feeling of disconnect from the rest of ESU, and to be fair that should be expected when living further away from the rest of campus. This disconnect should not transfer over to maintenance, however. The Ridge’s sidewalks should be thoroughly shoveled like the one’s surrounding other residence halls, its parking lots should also be included in snow removal plans and its rooms should be adequately suited for living by the time the Fall semester starts.

Should a college-owned housing not make sure to contribute to the safety and success of its students, or is it more convenient to build housing that is durable as paper and sticks?

Editor’s note: Professor Broun is the faculty advisor to The Stroud Courier.