LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WHAS11) — University of Louisville campus housing is cleaning up Hilda Threlkeld Hall after one student's Facebook post went viral.
Bethany Morgan posted complaints and pictures about the living conditions in her dorm. The post now has more than 18,000 shares as of Monday afternoon.
In her post, she claims university and campus housing officials did not take her complaints seriously until her post went viral and gained attention. Immediately following, campus housing held a meeting for students in Threlkeld Hall to openly share their concerns about living conditions in the dorm or problems they would like to see fixed.
Campus Housing Director Dr. Thomas Hardy said there was a housekeeping team on standby Sunday night to immediately address any concerns of mold brought to their attention at the meeting.
Bethany Morgan said by Monday morning, she saw more cleaning, maintenance and an environmental safety staff member in the hall.
"They cleaned all of the baseboards, the headboard and footboard, as well as the vents and window," Morgan said. "As far as I can see the problem is solved so hopefully it won't come back. And as of right now, I don't think it will."
Many of Morgan's concerns she voiced in her Facebook post dealt with what she believed to be mold growth in various parts of her room. She says she followed procedures by filling out "fix-it" forms to have the issue addressed. She said even after it was cleaned, it kept coming back.
Dr. Hardy said campus housing has a procedure of immediately addressing any complaints they receive within one business day. As for the mold growth, he said the problem has been fixed with a chemical, similar to the one used in hospitals.
"So far we've been extremely successful in the chemical that we use to make sure that it has not come back. We have not had a reoccurrence in the same spot that it's been before," Dr. Hardy said.
In her Facebook post, Morgan also claimed the mold growth in her dorm room has caused her to get physically sick. But, she never went to Campus Health, instead choosing to go to a different health care provider.
"That's been my biggest problem, though is that I didn't go to a doctor just to prove that this is mold," she said.
Dr. Hardy said campus health would tell housing if they determined any student was getting sick from causes related to mold that they could correlate to the student's dorm. But he said it's tricky to determine a student's sickness is directly related to a potential substance growth in their dorm room.
"You have to prove that 'oh yes it definitely came from that residence hall' and to date I haven't seen anything in that regard," said Dr. Hardy.
Morgan said her roommate switched rooms because she couldn't take the living conditions in their room. She said campus housing gave her this option, but she wouldn't be able to afford switching rooms. Morgan says she pays her tuition and housing on her own, and Threlkeld Hall is her only feasible option.
Despite the time it took for campus housing to address her concerns to Morgan's liking, she is still pleased with the way campus housing addressed the problem in the end.
"I have been impressed with the way campus housing has been dealing with this issue since it has been blown up," Morgan said. "I am really thrilled so see that they're actually doing something about it this time so hopefully the issue can be put to rest once and for all."
This isn't the first case of mold accusations the University of Louisville has faced.
According to the university student newspaper, more than 250 students were moved out of Miller Hall due to a mold outbreak. Again in 2013, mold was found in Threlkeld, Unitas and Miller. In 2014, mold was found again in Unitas and in 2016, Threlkeld had more mold growing.
"It's an older building, let's be honest. It's 50 plus years old and things tend to go wrong," said Dr. Hardy. "We have to consider all our options, but as you can imagine to teardown a building and rebuild a building is much more expensive than just to renovate a building."
The reoccurrence of issues int he older halls is something Dr. Hardy is paying attention to and plans to resolve sooner rather than later.
According to Dr. Hardy, the university received a bonding authority from the state for renovations to Threlkeld Hall. he hopes ot have a timeline for those renovations within the next few months.
►Contact reporter Tyler Emery at temery@WHAS11.com. Follow her on Twitter (@TylerWHAS11) and Facebook.