Toilets explode at Chicago dorm

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CHICAGO, March 6 (UPI) -- Students at the University of Chicago said one of the school's dormitories is plagued with unsanitary conditions, including exploding toilets.

Michelle Rodriguez, a first-year student at the school, told a panel of student government representatives the 52-year-old dorm, Pierce Hall, has rampant problems with unsanitary conditions, water outages and toilet explosions, WBBM-TV, Chicago, reported Tuesday.

"In a 24-hour period, the plumbing exploded twice, and exploded with such force and severity that a toilet bowl … shattered, throwing porcelain shards across the bathroom," Rodriguez said in her testimony. "There were, on the floor, there were just rivers of excrement, urine and pieces of porcelain. There were no e-mails, no nothing, no notifications sent from house administration about the issue."

Rodriguez told the Chicago Maroon, the student newspaper, the explosion left her with "pieces of someone else's excrement on my hair, my face, my lips."

School officials said last week the dorm will be improved when the spring quarter begins later this month.

"At the highest level of University leadership, we regret the conditions you have encountered. We find them unacceptable, and share your determination to improve your quality of life," Kimberly Goff-Crews, vice president for campus life and dean of students, said in an e-mail last Wednesday.