by Christopher Sanchez
Daily Lobo
The bad odor in Mitchell Hall should be nonexistent, said Joel Straquadine, manager of Facilities Maintenance.
Straquadine said a complaint was filed with Physical Plant on Friday about a bad odor lingering in Mitchell Hall. He said the problem was assessed, and two broken ventilation motors were found and fixed by Monday.
Student Amanda White said Mitchell Hall has smelled like rotten fish for the entire semester, and sometimes her instructor has to open the window to air out the room.
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"At first it's a shocker," said White, a freshman. "After a while, you get used to it - which is pretty gross."
Straquadine said without the two ventilation systems working - which help 10 percent of outside oxygen flow throughout the building -- bathroom odors and body odors might have lingered in the building.
"A lot of the odors in the building are generated by the occupants," Straquadine said. "It could be just the perfumes people wear."
Michelle Martin, a senior, said Mitchell Hall's odor has not left.
"It still stinks, and it lingers," Martin said. "It stunk for so long that it's impossible to go away in one day."
Straquadine said he was never informed of any foul odor in Mitchell Hall until Friday, and said the bad odor should now be gone. If students still smell an odor, it is natural for old buildings to have a distinct scent, he said.
"Sometimes these old buildings have this musky smell you can't lose," Straquadine said. "It's kind of like going to your grandma's house."
UNM student Sina Herrera said Mitchell Hall has had a foul odor for a while. On Tuesday she said the odor was gone.
"I didn't notice anything drastic where you notice the odor," Herrera said. "But I was trying to prepare myself for it."
Aaron Olson, a student and employee of the University, said there was a similar odor problem in Hokona Hall in June. He said it smelled like a rotten egg.
"At first they told us it was a gas leak," Olson said. "Then they found out it was a sewage line that burst."
Straquadine said there was a sewage leak near Hokona Hall, which is the primary entrance of UNM's College of Education. It cost the University $72,000 to fix the 40-year-old sewage line. He said the University hired a pumping crew to pump the raw sewage and had a company sanitize the polluted area in August.
Olson said he still smells sewage throughout the walkway from Dane Smith Hall to the College of Education.
"Every morning when I get off the shuttle, all I smell is crap," he said. "I find it insulting to students and staff that we have to walk around and smell that."
Straquadine said it would be impossible for sewage odor to be coming from the same sewage line because they are two different systems. He said the smell might be coming from a manhole on the street near Dane Smith. On a hot day, an odor from the manhole is noticeable, he said.
UNM student Andrew Pavidge said he occasionally smells an odor on campus.
"In general, it's not that bad," Pavidge said. "People need to get over their pretensions."
Straquadine said Physical Plant receives more than 40,000 work orders a year, and to ensure the requests are documented, students and faculty can request a work order through Physical Plant's Web site.
