Dear Morgan and Lewis House residents,

We have been responding to a report of mold in a room in Morgan House. We are continuing to follow our established protocol, working closely with the university’s on-staff industrial hygienist and engaging a third-party professional environmental testing company that uses an accredited lab, in the interest of promoting and protecting the health and safety of our campus residents.

Our residence halls are an integral part of the Vanderbilt experience, and we regularly conduct structural and hygienic inspections. We will work with residents who file any additional reports to determine next steps consistent with our commitment to providing safe, secure, comfortable and healthy housing for residents.

If you are experiencing a maintenance issue, we encourage you to submit a maintenance request form as soon as possible. The sooner we are aware of a potential issue, the sooner we can respond. We understand there may be additional forms and information circulating among students. Please be aware that this form is the official way to make a maintenance request to the university.

Additionally, we ask that you keep the following information in mind:

• Mold occurs commonly indoors and outdoors. It is not uncommon to have some level of mold within any indoor environment.
• We live in a part of the country that tends to have outdoor mold levels that are higher than other parts of the country—this also means that most of our living environments have some mold, though usually in lower levels than outdoors in Nashville.
• Nashville has high levels of humidity for many months of the year, which allows for mold to be visible on some indoor surfaces. Usually these molds do not cause significant health problems.
• Most people have no health problems associated with mold. For most types of molds, only people with allergies tend to react. It’s estimated that this is about 5% of the population.

Nashville’s climate—temperatures, humidity and other naturally occurring conditions—may allow the growth of mold and mildew in locations where dampness or moisture might be present. There are steps residents can take to mitigate these effects. These steps are outlined in your housing contract.

If you have health questions or concerns, we encourage you, as always, to reach out to the Student Health Center. You can make an online appointment, or if you cannot find an online appointment that works with your schedule or if you are unclear about the type of appointment you need, you can call 615-322-2427 to speak to a patient services representative. The Student Health Center’s hours are 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday-Friday.

We appreciate your time and attention to this matter, and ask that you report maintenance issues as soon as possible.

Sincerely,

Office of Housing and Residential Experience