It was a lousy way to wake up.

On Friday, Sept. 28, students in Arthur Hall awoke to electric drills and sledgehammers reverberating through the building at 8 a.m.

It was the first of several disruptions over the next few days that included a fire alarm, the noise coming from maintenance personnel working in the old print shop down in the basement.

Although the work didn’t start until 10 a.m. the following Monday (Oct. 1), on Tuesday students were awakened once more to the measured pounding of a sledgehammer.

To top it all, a fire alarm drove students out of bed at 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday.

According to Michael Palagonia, Director of Public Safety, paint fumes triggered the alarm, which was accidentally left uncovered.

Sophomore Alijah Gauthier awakened at 8:15 to drilling and hammering that continued until at least 11:00, when she left the building to eat and go to class. “My bed was shaking, the wall was shaking,” she said. “I couldn’t hear my own voice. It baffles me what made someone go, ‘Huh. Eight a.m. on a Friday morning. Let’s do some drilling.’”

Gauthier has a room in the suite directly above the area undergoing work, but she wasn’t the only one disturbed by the noise. Two students from the third floor were roused by the sound and notified Assistant Dean of Campus Life, Michele Whitmore, of the breach in quiet hours, which run until 8:30 a.m.

“I honestly didn’t know that it was going on,” said Whitmore, who made a call to Maintenance requesting that they wait until at least 10 a.m. before starting any projects involving disruptively loud noises.

Whitmore also asked to be notified in advance of any work going on in the dorms. “For the physical plant, some of our workers start at six and leave at three so they really have to get a lot of work done in the morning,” she said. “I’m sensitive to that but I also am sensitive to the fact that this is where students live for nine months and if we’re not able to find a time that’s convenient for all to get work done in the residence halls, I’d at least like to let students know ahead of time.”

Senior Athena Sweeney, who shares a suite with Gauthier, agreed. “People live here,” she said. “At least give us a heads up so that we know to go to bed early because we’ll be woken up by something obnoxious. A little bit of notice would have been good, so it’s not ‘Holy shit, is that an alarm are we gonna die? No, it’s a drill for some reason. Okay.’…It’s not difficult [to give advance notice]—put up a sign in the main lobby and we’re good, and not freak out when you wake up thinking the building is about to explode.”

According to Dean of Administration Sharron Scott, the noises are due to renovations to the print shop in Arthur Hall’s basement. “It’s the removal of several walls inside the print shop that separated the area into three small offices, and it’s being adjusted to make it one open space so that the space is more usable,” Scott said, adding that a new air handling unit was also being installed.

Before learning of the disruption, Scott was not aware of the renovations because of the small scale, as no outside contractors or equipment were required. When asking maintenance about the work, Scott learned that they had thought quiet hours ended at eight and that they didn’t realize it would be so disruptive; otherwise, she said, they might have scheduled it to take place during break.

The noises continued sporadically throughout the week preceding October break.