Molly Tumanic

Freshman Kate Ritchie, a third floor resident of Katharine Thomas Hall, is anxious for the construction on the building’s roof to be completed.

“In the morning, you get woken up by the pounding or the sawing or the smell,” Ritchie said. “It sounds like they’re going to punch right through the ceiling.”

Contractors began work to repair leaks on the Thomas Hall roof more than a month ago. The work was planned to be finished last week, but workers had to return to patch up a few more things.

The repairs on Thomas Hall are routine, said Joel Duncan, acting associate director of Housing and Residence Life. The repairs that began on Putnam Hall’s roof last week are also normal, he said.

“We just repair roofs as they get older, and it had been a number of years since those roofs had been done,” Duncan said, adding that last year there were also leak complaints about the top floor of Thomas Hall.

Freshman Elizabeth Nelson said she never had seen leaks in her room until the construction began.

“Last week it was dripping from the ceiling on my subwoofer,” Nelson said of her speaker.

The leak only lasted the day, and she caught it in time so little damage was done.

“I managed to clean everything up,” she said. “But we are all just disgruntled.”

Ritchie said one of the worst parts of the construction is not the noise or the limited access to sidewalks due to safety concerns, but the smell of tar that wafts into her room.

“There will be a smell,” Duncan said. “You can’t do a roof without there being some smell.”

He encouraged students with other concerns about the construction to contact him so the problems can be addressed.

For the most part, Duncan said, students seem understanding with the construction.

“It beats the alternative of having water come in my room,” Ritchie said.

Putnam’s roof should be finished at the end of November, Duncan said. There are no plans for construction on other residence halls this year.