Since 1962, Royer residence hall has comfortably housed 125 men and women on Elizabethtown College’s campus. However, this semester, numerous students have been complaining about the repeated flooding on the first floor.

The Resident Assistant on the first floor of Royer, Junior Early Childhood major Nicole Curcio, said that although the flooding happened a few times throughout the semester, “the great flood,” as they have been calling it, happened on Sunday, Feb. 8th.

“The drain in the boys bathroom began flooding water due to clogged pipes. The water quickly came out of the bathroom and into the hallway where it made it almost completely down the hall, stopping one room from the lobby/center of the building,” Curcio said. “The water went into many of the resident’s rooms.”

Elizabethtown College hired an outside company to come in and clean up the floor and the resident’s rooms because there was a chance that this kind of flood would expose residents to health risks. Curcio mentioned that the cleaning of the rooms and residents belongings was not done to the full extent that the residents were hoping, with numerous rugs and other items on the floor at the time being damaged.

A resident of Royer who has chosen to remain anonymous said that due to the flooding, they were unable to go back to their rooms until late at night. By the time they had returned, the hallway had been cleared but they were told to wait for the outside company to arrive. “They did not get around to my room until about 1:30 a.m. because the company needed to retrieve more equipment,” said the resident. “They did not finish cleaning our hallway until nearly 3 a.m. and the loud equipment kept my roommate and [me] awake.”

Residents were not charged for this incident, although if it happens again, the building has been informed that they will be charged.

Directors of Facilities Management, Mark Zimmerman says that the issue is a behavioral one. “Each time the traps and drains have had to be snaked and cleared of obstructions, evidence of excessive amounts of feminine hygiene products have been present along with the wrappers,” said Zimmerman. “Facilities Management cannot stress enough the importance of the proper disposal of the products in the napkin dispensers which are located in each stall.”

The issue has been brought to the attention of Residence Life several times and Facilities has been told that the RAs have been relaying this message to the occupants. There have not been any recent backups, so Facilities is hoping that the message has gotten through.

“There was also an incident in which excessive amounts of toilet paper was stuffed into the toilets in an act of vandalism to intentionally clog the toilet,” Zimmerman said. “Why any resident of a hall would want to inconvenience their fellow hall mates by doing an act like this is hard to understand.”

Mechanical Trades Supervisor, Baron Wanner says that the issue has not only affected Royer, but different wings in Founders and Brinser. “The only thing that should go down the toilets is human waste and toilet paper,” Wanner said. “Toilet paper is made to break up in water. NOTHING else should be flushed down toilet even if the packaging says is safe to do so.”

In the future, Residence Life plans to provide ongoing education to residential students about how to reduce the likelihood of pipe backups.