During my freshman year at Temple, I lived in Hardwick Hall, which is part of Johnson & Hardwick (aka J&H)
I chose to go to Temple two weeks before decision day, so many of the options for housing were already completely full. While I lucked out and managed to snag a really great roommate, there were also lots of terrifying things that happened on our floor.
1. The rodents
People in almost every room surrounding me and my roommate had a rodent problem. There were giant cockroaches, swarms of gnats, and even mice.
2. The girl’s bathroom
For some reason, the girls on my floor were horrible at cleaning up after themselves. There would always be tons of stuff on the sink, like hair, food, and, dust—from one time a girl dumped out all the grit from her vacuum in the sink. Lots of them would never flush the toilets or they would get stuff on the toilet seats. And don’t get me started on the period stuff. Blood…everywhere. Totally disgusting.
3. The air conditioning
Unfortunately, my air conditioning unit only blew out bad smelling air, no matter what I or my roommate tried to do to fix it. I called the maintenance guy at least seven times that year to fix the problem but he never knew why it was so bad smelling. The AC unit would also turn into a solid block of ice if you set the temperature below 68°F.
4. The smells
Lots of people would spill their food in the hallways or burn popcorn in the microwave leaving behind horrible smells.
5. The sounds
Although people tended to be loud with their music or just talking in the hallways, I never minded that too much. To me, nothing was more horrifying than when you could hear people on the floor hooking up. SO awkward.
6. The fire alarms
My least favorite part of living in Hardwick Hall was the weekly fire alarms. For multiple weeks in a row, people in our building kept triggering the fire alarm, which forced everyone to evacuate for at least an hour. Fire drills always seemed to happen extremely late at night or during horrible weather. One morning at 6 a.m., we were even stuck out in the pouring rain for two hours.
As much as I miss living with all of the people on my freshman floor, I was also extremely relieved when it was over.