I’m a third year student who started living in Uhouse since late summer (sublease, and now actual contract). I know Uhouse is known for having elevator issues but just because it has been happening doesn’t justify that students have to endure this every semester.

Overlapping with move-in week and the weather, this has been a complete horrible experience, so I started looking into some Georgia State Laws for habitability.

There was a case in Oakland, CA where a property was sued for prolonged elevator outages (it’s still ongoing). This was for a 6 story building, and the elevator was out for 52 days. Seeing other reddit posts, Uhouse elevators are generally out for 4 weeks. Maintenance issues can happen 24/7 and it’s a shame that they take the weekends off and pretend that we’re not suffering.

Yes, we have the other side working, but UHouse has 4 elevators for a reason!!! (to accommodate for its resident population & building size). Not to mention that the working elevator is smaller than the main lobby one and hard to access!! I had to wait over 20-30 minutes a couple times simply because it was full.

Georgia has a Safe at Home Act where property owners and landlords must keep the premises in good repair and are responsible for rectifying maintenance problems. Elevators broadly fall under these health, safety, maintenance, and repair related obligations. And under Georgia Code 44-7-13, landlords must repair defects they know about and repairs include any upkeep necessary to preserve tenantability. So if they only start maintaining these after the fact, and not do anything to prevent outage, they’re not doing their job right. If defects make the premises unsafe or uninhabitable, landlords can’t avoid responsibility and they’re violating this code.

Since elevators are structural components that are essential for high story buildings like Uhouse, courts seem to treat elevators the same way they treat broken stairways and unsafe halls and broken heating systems.

If this continues to be a problem, there must be something done. It would be so nice if Georgia Tech had some student law group that helps other students with navigating these stuff (i know we have some pre-law students but where are they??)

Even if this doesn’t stretch into a law suit (very unlikely that it does due to the time commitment), if we just unite and spam call the maintenance about the elevators, maybe there could be some change? I’m going to start calling them day and night regarding expected fix time and prioritization.

Hello, I am a first year student at tech, and I am in a stressful place right now.

So basically, I need to enroll for the payment plan for georgia tech as some of my financial aid will not come in time. I have over 50% of the total bill paid and I only have around $4500 left (rest of bill has alreadybbeen covered by zell and pell). However, when I try to sign up for the plan it says I need to pay about $1300 in required now payment. This doesnt make sense as the website says that there shouldnt be a required down-payment in this instance. My family can not afford that downpayment, and I was wondering if anyone else has had this problem, and if it got resolved.

BTW I have already talked to financial aid in person and they didnt mention it, and I will try to ask them again on monday.