Manchester Uni students forced to move out after halls flat flooded by burst pipe

Four UoM students were forced to “stay in other places for varying amounts of time” after their halls flat was suddenly flooded by a burst pipe. The incident occurred in the early hours of the 16th October in a Whitworth Park bedroom.

Uni maintenance cleaned up the water on the night, but failure from the University to follow up with cleaning the soggy carpets meant one of the students decided to withhold her rent.

Student Eva told The Manchester Tab: “We were offered no compensation or help with claiming insurance”.

Eva explained that four bedrooms were damaged and the students had to use their clothes to “prevent worse damage”.

Whilst Eva said that the Uni maintenance were “very helpful” on the night, she explained that in the aftermath the flat felt they lacked “basic support” with cleaning the “really bad” smelling carpets.

The four flatmates were forced to stay elsewhere. Eva says she decided to withhold her rent due to “the situation and the rent strike”. In response, the University sent someone to “shampoo two of the four rooms damaged”.

Eva said: “All of us got our clothes soaked and then had to spend so much money washing them after”. She added that the incident caused her to fall behind on her Uni work due to “the worst damage” being done to her “phone and laptop chargers”. This meant she struggled to do her work for the next week. She described this as “extremely stressful, on top of everything else”.

She also said: “We had a silver fish problem before but now it’s at a much higher risk, same goes for the damp”.

Speaking to The Manchester Tab, Eva says she feels “the lack of communication from the university has been perfectly portrayed through the fences” put up in Fallowfield without communicating with students.

She said: “It’s a university-wide problem, they not only don’t tell us things, they don’t listen to us either”.

Another protest took place in Owens Park last week in response to “the University’s lack of  transparency and organisation amidst the coronavirus”. This was organised by student action group S.A.F.E.R.

A University of Manchester spokesperson said: “The University corresponded with the resident from Whitworth Park in the days immediately after the problem occurred and the issue was fixed. Advice on how to make an insurance claim was provided.

“The resident wished to escalate the complaint and since this process is ongoing, we are not able to comment further”.

Related stories recommended by this writer:

• ‘Ashamed and humiliated’: Manc staff send letter to Uni over the Fallowfield fences

• Student rent strikers occupy Manchester halls tower block

•  Manchester Uni spent £11,000 on the fences around Fallowfield halls