Why College Apartment Complexes Shouldn’t Have Atriums
During freshman year, I lived in Craige North, a dorm on UNC-Chapel Hill’s south campus, with a roommate and two suitemates. Sophomore year, I lived in my sorority house with two roommates in a walk-through room with three other girls constantly trudging through our room to get to theirs and approximately 35 housemates. Needless to say, come junior year, I was very excited to live in an apartment and have my own room. I thought I would finally get some peace and quiet.
I was wrong.
My friends and I decided to live in The Warehouse Apartments because of its convenient location to campus and reasonable price, as apartments go in Chapel Hill anyway. We live in a four-bedroom apartment with two bathrooms and a small kitchen and common area. I’ve been living here for two years now, so clearly, I don’t hate it that much and while having my own room and space is amazing, there are many things I would change.
The apartment building itself is set up in the most peculiar way. There are two atriums, one to the left when you enter through the front doors and one to the right, both lined with electric purple railings and staircases. I must say, this doesn’t quite remind me of an actual warehouse and the exposed brick is overrated.
Due to the layout of the building, two of the four rooms in each apartment have windows looking into the atrium, while the other two rooms have windows looking outside. Seems a bit unfair if you ask me, but maybe I’m biased, as I am one of the unlucky ones whose room is on the atrium side.
Why do I hate it so much, you ask?
1. The atriums are extremely loud.
When I say I can hear everything, I mean everything. I can hear people talking, walking up the stairs, doors slamming, dog collars jingling and everything in between. College students don’t get enough sleep as it is, and to make matters worse, I’m a very light sleeper.
The bedrooms are relatively small, leaving only one possible position for our beds. Inconveniently enough, my bed only happens to fit in the corner of the room touching the window with my head right next to it. As you can tell, this has caused me a lot of sleepless nights and unnecessary stress.
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