Dani Hauser came home from Winter Break to a complete shock.
Over the break, a pipe burst in the upstairs bathroom of the Alpha Epsilon Phi sorority house, which, over the course of two weeks, flooded in five of the 22 bedrooms as water seeped through the floor to the living room below.
Hauser, a 21-year-old interior design senior, said she laughed then hysterically cried when she realized the last three and a half years of her projects, which she stored under her bed, were destroyed.
“It was all my hard work, gone,” she said.
All of her possessions were in garbage bags and there were fans and dehumidifiers everywhere, she said. Comforters and pillowcases were covered in mold.
Within 30 minutes of discovering the gushing water, house mom Nancy Patee, who refused to comment, had a plumber on the scene, Hauser said.
A woman in the room next to Hauser left her laptop under her bed, which sustained irreparable damage.
Damaged areas throughout the house had the floors rewaxed and the wallpaper, ceiling tiles and baseboards replaced.
The inhabitants of the room with the most water damage, Room 12, were relocated to air mattresses in the downstairs study room.
All damage to personal belongings within rooms is covered by renter’s insurance because all members of the house sign a contract relieving the house of responsibility, Kenna said.
[A version of this story ran on page 4 on 1/14/2015 under the headline “AEPhi house flooded during break"]
Water streaks run down the rusted hood of a fireplace in the Alpha Epsilon Phi sorority house on West Panhellenic Drive.
