Carbon monoxide detector issue in River Terrace unaddressed for days

In the early afternoon on Thursday, February 4, the carbon monoxide detector in Gavin Robinson’s dorm room beeped. A few minutes later, it beeped again. And again. And again.

Robinson knew the problem — the battery must have been low. A harmless issue, assuming it is replaced in time. Robinson didn’t have a ladder to reach the detector, or a battery to replace the dying one with, so he did what all students are taught to do in orientation: He submitted a work order. As the work order was submitted in the early afternoon (an easily solved matter with potentially serious safety concerns if unsolved) Robinson assumed it would be resolved later that day or, at worst, the next morning.

He was wrong.

That night, Robinson and his roommate had to deal with the constant beeping of the detector as they tried to get some needed sleep before next morning’s classes. The morning came and went; other than the automated response sent to him as soon as he submitted the work order, Robinson heard nothing from the people on the other end of the system. Friday afternoon, Robinson and his roommate, kept inside by the cold and threat of contracting COVID-19 in indoor public areas, tried to study and do homework despite the annoying and disruptive beep.

After 5 p.m. on Friday, Robinson became worried that the beep wouldn’t be solved until the work week began again on Monday. He did the only thing the work order system told him to do beyond simply waiting: call the police. After waiting some time, he went outside and found a police officer heading towards his building. Flagging him down, Robinson was surprised to learn that the officer was not responding to his call, but was there for other purposes. After a brief conversation, the police officer was able to contact Stevens and get a concrete answer as to why no action had yet been taken: they were out of batteries. Robinson learned through the officer that they were planning on sending someone to replace the battery Saturday morning, nearly two full days after the work order was submitted and automatically accepted.

In the end, the problem wasn’t fixed until late Saturday night, after another full night of trying to sleep between beeps and study despite constant distraction. To quote Robinson’s roommate, they were “considering vandalism” to stop the beeping of the detector.

Despite the annoyance and disruption, Robinson said he isn’t as upset over the delay in fixing the issue as he is over the lack of communication. From his perspective, he was potentially in real danger by not having a carbon monoxide detector and was being forced to deal with a detrimental learning environment with no clear options. If he had known from the start that it would be days before the problem would be resolved, Robinson says, he could have taken action to mitigate the issues himself.

“I don’t know what was with the zero communication with me, but that was the most [frustrating] thing about this. The work order site straight up didn’t load. Whenever I tried to click the link to check my status, whether it was on my phone, computer, any browser, the page just couldn’t be reached. … It would’ve been nice to have gotten something along the lines of, ‘We are currently out of batteries, so we can’t fix your alarm till next week.'”

Gavin Robinson

The Stute reached out to Frank LoCastro, Assistant Vice President for the Division of Facilities and Campus Operations, to gain insight into why Robinson received such an extended delay with no response from Facilities as to the status of his work order. LoCastro wrote that the carbon monoxide detector required an external vendor to replace the battery, and this vendor was contacted on the day Robinson submitted the work order. Additionally, there was an “unusual response delay” due to ongoing work in response to a snowstorm which occurred in the days prior. Finally, LoCastro explained that “Stevens will be instituting cross-training sessions with staff and selected vendors in order to have an increased number of staff that can address … similar issues in a [more timely] fashion, even when there is other critical work on campus. “

Ever since that Saturday, Robinson has reported no issues with his room’s carbon monoxide detector.

River Terrace has a history of quality-of-life issues for residents.

Editor’s Note: All exchanges between the writer and Robinson were via email.