Beloit College has spent the past three summers renovating residence halls across campus, but students continue to report problems with heat, mold, pests, moisture and other adverse living conditions.
In 2024, Whitney Hall underwent a $3.5 million renovation. Wood Hall received renovations in 2025, and Bushnell Hall was renovated this summer. At the same time, students living in other campus dorms have dealt with issues that have required repairs, temporary relocations and, in one case, finding somewhere else to stay for the night.
The Round Table sat down with three third-year Beloit Students — Keira Linton’28, Rachel Lubar’28 and Lillianne McCully’28 — to talk about their experiences with campus housing. Their experiences differed by building, but each described problems with their living conditions or the college’s response to those problems.
Emerson Hall, which opened in 2016, has also been the site of housing complaints this semester. McCully, who lives on the second floor of Emerson, and had to move in early due to being an Orientation Leader, said she and her roommate, Alex Fondrk’28, had reported what they believed were roaches in their room before a separate incident involving a suspected bed bug.
McCully said she first noticed what she believed were roaches shortly after arriving early for Orientation Leader responsibilities. “I was on campus early for my OL position, so very early on- within a few days- I realized there were roaches.” She contacted Residential Life and later submitted a Facilities request. According to McCully, Facilities came the following day, sprayed the room and placed sticky traps. She said she later found two more roaches and submitted another request with photos and videos. McCully said she and Fondrk followed up but waited weeks for another Facilities response. “I’ve had a roach stuck to a sticky trap for weeks,” she joked.
The situation changed when her roommate found what they believed was a bed bug. The roommate caught the insect, placed it in a Ziploc bag and called Security.
According to McCully, Security took the insect and told the students they would need to find another room. “Me and my roommate were very suddenly moved out, and told we would need to be put in a new room, only to find out they [ResLife] didn’t actually have a room to put us into. And so then we were kinda dragged around campus in the middle of the night…Reslife was trying to find us a room, and they kept failing.”
After waiting for multiple hours for Security, McCully and her roommate were first taken to Aldrich, where the room they were shown did not have beds. They were then taken to Haven, where she said one of the rooms had mouse feces inside.
Ultimately, they were not provided an available campus room and were forced to stay somewhere off-campus for the night.
McCully said the incident also changed how she felt her housing concerns were being addressed. Regarding her first report, she said,“Res Life immediately treated me with disbelief, and they were very condescending.”
“It was only this bedbug incident where, when we called Security, where something actually happened, people actually came in and took it seriously,” McCully said. “It doesn’t change the fact that my roommate and I were left homeless for a night.”
Meanwhile, Linton and Lubar, who live in Haven Hall’s Dance Haus, said the recent excessive heat has made their room difficult to live in. “It’s just impossible to get any sleep,” Linton said. “I’ve had a headache for days now, because of the heat.” Lubar said her room also becomes humid.
To deal with the issue, Linton and Lubar said they take cold showers before bed and spend time in the library and other air-conditioned locations to get away from the heat as alternatives. According to them, condensation builds up in their floor’s bathroom and some of their belongings have been affected by the moisture.
Linton and Lubar have also dealt with mold. Last semester, one of their floormates had a mold test conducted in the room. Linton and Lubar said the results indicated a mold problem, after which the college contacted them and sent a staff member and mold inspectors to examine the room. The students said they were told the issue would be addressed over the summer. They have not had the room tested again, so they cannot confirm whether mold remains.
Haven is not the only residence hall where students have faced housing problems. During move-in weekend, Residential Life notified students that moisture and air quality problems had been discovered on the fourth floor of Porter Hall, affecting about eight rooms. Students who were affected were temporarily relocated to the former Outdoor Environmental Club (OEC) house, while a professional remediation company inspected and cleaned the rooms. According to Residential Life, students will return to the affected rooms only after an independent company certifies them as safe.
Last semester, the campus community received an email stating that the OEC and Beloit Independent Theater Experience, or BITE, houses were being sold and would not be available as student living spaces. Students affected were relocated to other housing for the 2026–27 academic year.
Correction (Sep. 9): the campus community received an email on April 3 from the Dean of Students which relayed that the OEC and BITE clubs were being “relocated as we continue the process of taking these very old houses offline,” per the email.
Brannon Hall, meanwhile, required students to relocate after the college discovered that the building’s fire panel needed to be replaced. Residential Life said students assigned to Brannon were moved into other campus housing while the replacement panel was ordered. The college expects the new panel to be installed around fall break.
Housing conditions also vary between buildings, since some residence halls lack air conditioning. Buildings such as 840 Hall, Wood, and Haven, as well as some fraternity houses and other campus housing, do not have AC. 815 Hall is also impacted; its air conditioning is currently broken, and has not worked since move-in days.
On another front, the college has warned students about an increase in bats entering campus buildings. In an email sent out on Aug. 14, Director of Safety and Security Eric Sharlow told students not to touch bats and to contact Security if they encounter one. According to student reports, the majority of the bats were seen in Emerson Hall, but at least one has also been spotted in Pearsons Hall’s Moore Lounge.
Housing costs $3,441 per semester during the 2026–27 academic year. This academic year, the college introduced different pricing for single and double rooms, with single rooms costing an additional $400 per semester. The college has said the additional housing revenue will help support the maintenance and modernization of residence halls.
Recently, Beloit College administration announced that they would be creating a Residential Experience Advisory Committee, which will advise student life on residence halls, facilities improvements, common areas, laundry, recreation and other residential issues. The committee is expected to meet three times each semester. An information session will be being held this Thursday at 11:30, in Morse-Ingersoll’s Moore Lounge.
As renovations continue, students across campus experience vastly different conditions depending on where they live. For Linton, Lubar, McCully, and many students across campus, the cost of housing does not match the experience they have had in the dorms. “I pay so much money, and then I can’t even exist comfortably,” Linton said.
Featured image: Lilly McCully’28
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