Shit went down (literally) at Te Rangihīroa College in O-Week after a blocked drain forced the college to close part of its first-floor due to flooding. The blockage happened on the morning of Sunday, Feb 18 – about 24 hours after new residents moved into the $100 million behemoth (no one is safe from rampaging freshers). While the blockage was being fixed, 16 residents were relocated, spending their very first days at the hall marooned on the emptyish third-floor. Welcome to Dunners.
Speaking to the extent of the flooding, University Director of Campus and Collegiate Life Services James Lindsay told Critic Te Arohi, “A small area of carpet tiles in the adjacent corridor and whānau room, and some carpet within a bedroom of one of the relocated students, were damaged. In addition, there is some damage to ceiling tiles in the floor below.” Said ceiling happens to be smack-bang in the middle of the main dining hall and can still be seen upon entrance.
On the Sunday evening of the event, damage to the ceiling meant the dining hall had to be closed for the night and everyone got to enjoy a meal outside, lest they be dripped on mid-feed. Some students speculated that the kitchen may have had to close down partially as well, with one student telling Critic Te Ārohi, “The dinner was pretty trash that day, basically just a hunk of meat.” In addition to the dining room interruption, another resident, Harry, said, “It smelt like shit for a few days,” and he wasn’t talking about the Gregg's factory stench. His mate was similarly aggrieved, saying, “It’s pretty awful really.”
Outside of these two, everyone else was strangely apathetic. We couldn’t actually find another Te Rangihīroa student pissed off by the fact that their $100 million hall fell into shit’s creek on day one. One student, Angie, said, “Things like this happen,” while her friend Jerome argued, “There really wasn’t that much of an impact.” A Selwyn breatha, Rider, who had heard about the carnage mused, “All those other first-years moved into their brand new hall and then it flooded [...] that’s pretty funny to me.” Nuff said, it seems, for Te Rangihīroa students who have otherwise had a beauty of a start to their university careers.
What has been puzzling students is how the flooding actually happened. James Lindsay told Critic Te Ārohi, “Plumbers were unable to identify the cause when clearing the blockage.” Lindsay confirmed that camera checks had been done on the area, as well as to other sites around the hall, affirming that no more damage would have been done by rogue sewage, yet scant evidence was found for a potential culprit.
And then a rumour surfaced, whispers echoing in the hallways of the college: “Someone tried to cook noodles in their sink.” Multiple students reported this to be the case when questioned, though most were sceptical on the likelihood of the yarn actually being true.
The story goes that a sink was (allegedly) left running in an ensuite bathroom whilst the cooking ensued, eventually causing a blockage after the water was left to sit. Critic Te Ārohi departed the hall with a pep in our step; regardless of its basis in evidence, the rumour has been circulated throughout the college and may just fester into the kind of mythic tale any fledgling hall needs to build community.