Odors
An offensive odor is an odor of such intensity that it becomes apparent or bothersome to others. Housing & Residence Life staff have the right to rid the room of the odor at a cost to the resident if they do not comply with the request to eliminate the odor immediately. Residents should report any offensive odors to their respective area office.
Health & Safety Inspections
Housing & Residence Life staff perform health and safety inspections of every university room—in traditional residence halls as well as on-campus apartments—during each quarter as well as Winter Break in order to ensure that no health or safety issues or violations exist. On-campus residents may visit the Key Dates webpage so they know when to expect a health and safety inspection to occur. All instructions requiring compliance with policies must be followed or disciplinary action may be taken, and monetary health and safety inspection failure fees will be applied starting at $25.00 per resident per failed unit.
With regard to room cleanliness, acceptable health practices must be observed. Residents may be assessed fees at any point if Housing staff determine repairs are needed.
All decisions by Department of Housing & Residence Life (“DePaul Housing”) related to damage and room condition are final. All residents in a unit will be assessed fees should a unit fail a health and safety inspection twice. In addition, should Housing staff discover infractions during inspections that would be considered of a serious nature and viewed as posing potential harm to the residents and hall community, a fee of $150 per person in a unit may be assessed to the residents. Serious-nature infractions and prohibited items include, but are not limited to:
• Tampering with fire safety or life safety equipment (fire extinguishers, alarm panels, sprinkler heads, heat detectors, smoke detectors, etc.)
• Lit candles, lit cigarettes, burning incense or any open flame
• Explosive devices, firearms or fireworks
• Furniture or personal items blocking emergency exits
In addition to the fee for serious-nature infractions, the health and safety inspection staff will submit an incident report. The incident report will be processed through DePaul Housing and the resident may be referred through the student conduct process. Prohibited appliances will be confiscated or disabled with a plug-locking device. Upon completion of the in-unit health and safety inspection, staff members will lock the room/apartment door behind them. If a resident does not have their key to re-enter the room, they will be responsible for a lock-out fee as doors should be locked when residents are away and residents should carry their room/apartment keys.
Repairs & Maintenance / Work Orders
If a unit needs repairs, please use our work order process.
NOTE: On-campus residents should be advised that there are times a member of our facilities team will need to enter a room to complete a work order or tend to any other facilities issues.
Non-Emergency
Repair requests must be submitted online. To expedite service, please be as detailed as possible and send no more than one work order or repair request per the work order form. For example, when reporting a broken light switch and a heating issue, two work orders must be submitted - one work order per issue. Please specify the location of the problem (e.g., the light switch in the bathroom). Work orders are only processed during business hours, Monday through Friday, when the university is open.
Facilities Emergencies
To report a problem that requires the immediate response of a staff member (e.g., overflowing toilet, loss of electricity, leak/flooding, etc.), please call rather than placing a work order.
- During normal business
hours (9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday), contact the appropriate
area office or the main DePaul Housing office at (773) 325-7196.
- Outside of normal business hours (nights, weekends, and holidays), notify the front desk of the building or call Public Safety at (773) 325-7777.
Leaks or Flooding
Residents should treat any sort of leak or flooding as an emergency. Report leaks or flooding to the area office 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday, and to Public Safety at (773) 325-7777 outside of these times. Residents may be held accountable for damage if leaks or flooding are not reported promptly.
Pest Control
If a resident has pest concerns in a room, immediately report a potential problem via the work order system. DePaul Housing has protocols in place with Facility Operations and a pest control vendor to manage any reported cases. There is a regular schedule maintained for pest control of communal areas. It is the resident's responsibility to prepare the room or apartment for treatment, if applicable. Failure to maintain a clean residence (i.e., clean of waste and debris) may be grounds for a damage billing fee to the student account. Notifications of treatment will be sent out prior to the service. When pest control remediation requires residents to clean and/or launder personal items, residents are responsible for taking care of this on their own. DePaul University does not cover the cost of cleaning or laundering personal items.
Notices
When facility-related issues arise, communication will be sent out to students via notices in halls, emails, or posters. Emergency maintenance updates will be posted on the electronic display monitors in the residence halls when necessary.
DePaul Housing and Facility Operations maintenance staff will follow social distancing and face mask requirements when entering students' rooms and apartments.
Temperature
All heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning* (HVAC) equipment is controlled and maintained by the engineering staff. It is the university’s policy to maintain the following seasonal temperatures:
Engineers will adjust HVAC equipment as needed to maintain unit temperatures within that range. - If a unit is uncomfortably warm, please submit a work order online or contact the area office or the main DePaul Housing office at (773) 325-7196 during business hours or Public Safety at (773) 325-7777 after business hours and on weekends.
- If the heat is not working
properly and the temperature falls below this range, report it as an emergency.
Please contact the area office or the main DePaul Housing office at (773)
325-7196 during business hours. After business hours, call Public Safety at
(773) 325-7777 so that an on-call engineer can be dispatched.
- In certain cases, buildings are controlled by building automation systems. In these instances, adjustments may occur without an engineer being dispatched to the site.
In buildings with central heating and cooling systems, either heating or cooling can be provided at any given time. For example, when heat is turned on, cooling is no longer available. The process of switching from heating mode to cooling mode, or from cooling mode to heating mode, is a complex and intensive process that takes several days to complete. For this reason, DePaul Facility Operations is only able to make this switch once per season.
Typically, the transition from cooling to heat occurs in late October, and the transition from heat to cooling occurs in late May. Chicago weather tends to fluctuate during those seasons, so there may be some days with uncomfortable temperatures prior to the transition. For example, an unseasonably hot stretch in April may occur while we are still providing heat, but we are unable to switch to cooling because temperatures will moderate back down to normal after the heat wave and we would still need to be able to provide heat. In this example, there likely will be temperatures in May that are in the 30s and 40s and would require heat, and had we switched to cooling too early, we would not be able to maintain a warm enough temperature in the buildings.
Furthermore, the City of Chicago Heat Ordinance governs our responsibility for providing heat from October 1 through June 1, so we must legally prioritize providing heat over cooling during those months. Facility Operations staff will monitor weather forecasts and decide to switch modes when confident that temperatures will be steady moving forward.
To avoid freezing plumbing and sprinkler pipes in rooms or apartments, please leave windows closed in the winter months and report hot rooms as instructed above.