Housing is an issue for almost every single college student. Whether you’re just starting as a freshman or a continuing student. Some questions that will most definitely come into mind are, where can I find good housing for a reasonable price? At the University of Hawaii at Manoa, there a number of choices you have to choose from. When it comes to living on campus or off, the school provides “bearable” boarding. When I say bearable, this means barely making it livable conditions for human beings. UH offers quite a few selections for students besides, incoming freshman who are required to live in the freshman towers unless they chose to live off campus. For those who do choose to live on campus, I should warn you to be very wise when choosing where exactly you want to live. Students really need to know the deep dirty secrets of on campus housing, especially because they are paying so much money for it. As an out of state upperclassmen, I have been living on campus for the last three years, but not by choice. The places I have lived so far include, the freshman towers, Johnson Hall, Hale Wainani and Hale Noelani. Students really need to share what they see and what really goes down. The reality of UH living conditions need to be revealed to future students as an eye opener. The experiences I am about to share are all very much true. For the last couple of years there have been some extremely traumatizing moments and events while living on campus. After the second semester of freshman year, I was faced with the fact that I needed to take summer school to raise my GPA. If I had done my work like I planned then I would not have dreaded going to summer school, but as always, things never go as planned. As I signed up for on campus summer housing because my parents refuse to pay for my housing unless it was on campus, fearing my focus of studying would be lost. To my surprise, I got placed into Hale Wainani low rise. As I moved in, got acquainted with my new roommates, and settled down, I thought to myself “This is going to be a great summer.” As the first couple of weeks past, I was just getting use to the heat and dealing with absolutely no cool breeze blowing into my room on the second floor. My roommates and I kept our place very clean. I, myself am a neat freak and need to have everything tidy. We all took turns taking the trash out almost everyday, when ever it got full. But one, day as I came back from class I saw something running around on the ground in our kitchen near our trash bags, I thought “What could it be?” Taking a closer look I soon discovered it was a roach as long as my index finger, and in shock I screamed! You would think that having roaches around the house could be the worst thing that could happen, but guess again. Exactly one week later as I was brushing my teeth, I walked over to our refrigerator to see what I could eat for breakfast. As I was walking, I saw something very tiny and white. It looked like it was some sort of worm, but very short, and it moved kind of at a slow pace. I bent down and looked even closer, soon to find out that it was a maggot! It wasn’t even just one, as I took a look all round the room there were at least one hundred! Everywhere! Especially near the trash can where it was practically empty, it was only one fourth full. It was an infestation of larvae (maggots). I screamed out loud and ran up the stairs, but soon found that the maggots were even climbing up the stairs! It was definitely an emergency situation. So we contacted our RA and the maintenance men, who simply just sprayed some Raid. I mean even I could have done that! But the Raid did not help at all. The maggots were increasing as the hours went by; it was a very frantic situation. Eventually they were all vacuumed up and our apartment air was filled with the fumes of Raid. The smell did not go away for the longest time! People may think this is the worst situation they have ever heard of, but think again. This event only took place during summer session one. I also had the lovely chance of taking summer session two right afterwards. I thought maybe after moving to a new apartment, that event that it could never happen again. Yet, my hopes were just too high. As summer session two started not to far in, the same thing happened again! We once again had another maggot infestation in the new apartment in Hale Wainani low rise. This is probably one of the worst things that could happen to any student. You would think that will all the extra fees we pay for housing and the actual cost itself, UH housing would invest into insect spray or some kind of bug terminators. Where is all our housing money essentially going to? The following year later, I was unfortunately placed into Johnson Hall. Because we had no kitchen in our actual rooms, I thought that nothing worse could happen compared to the events that took place in Hale Wainani. I don’t know what it was, but my fate of ever settling down into decent housing was far away. One morning I woke up to my surprise, my roommate looking at me in serious shock. I asked her what was wrong? She told me to turn around and look at my pillow and the wall. I slowly turned my head to see little black ants or some sort of tiny caterpillars all over my baby pink pillow cover and against the wall. They were everywhere! In disgust I ran to the bathroom and took a shower with steaming hot water washing my hair at least three times. That day my RA had to call Ecolab which deals with pest control, cleaning, and sanitizing. I had to stay in my friend’s room for the next two days, while they were cleaning the room. When I came back I found my blanket was thrown away and the reason for the bugs was the wind had swept them into our room from the trees outside. That same year my neighbor woke up with very bad large bites the swelled all over her body. Ecolab came once again and declared that she had bed bugs in her mattress. She has to leave her room for almost one week. Now that is quite a lot of unexpected things that took place for the worse. After going through a series of unfortunate events, I want to warn students to be very wise when it comes to housing. Although on campus housing may be cheaper than paying off campus rent, it doesn’t mean it is going to be perfect. In fact, the only dormitory that I would actually consider “clean” is the newly built Frear Hall which opened in fall 2008. But the cost of living there is just as much as someone would pay living off campus in their own place with a few roommates. Another negative aspect of on campus housing that it is mandatory for students not living in the apartments to purchase a meal plan. If you like the convienece of having your meals prepared for you, the meal plan is a good idea. But keep in mind that each meal or “block” that you use, even in the cheapest meal plan is worth roughly $8.50. With that much money you spend on one meal, off campus you can find so many great places to eat, where the food actually tastes like real food, not cardboard. If you enjoy cooking, then definitely look into the apartments. But remember no matter where you go there is no guarantee that the place you choose to live is going to be clean or completely, bug free. Overall, on campus housing at UH is not one of the best places to live compared to other universities. But if you have no where else to go, can’t afford anything else, or your parents are forcing you to live on campus, then just remember to be smart about where you want to be staying. If you have the option of living off campus and can handle the responsibilities, then definitely go for it.

In conclusion, I find it so disappointing how over the years, the university has not made that much of an effort to clean up and make renovations to the dormitories, besides the freshman towers which is currently taking place. The student’s needs should be top priority for UH, above all, the living conditions. The money that students pay to live on campus is without doubt worth much more than what the school has to offer.

-Rainbow Connection Staff Writer