Resident assistants in on-campus housing have been receiving multiple noise complaints per week.
Quiet hours on campus are from 10 p.m. to 10 a.m. on weekdays and 11 p.m. to 10 a.m. on weekends. There are some students, however, that don’t abide by these guidelines.
“I think usually we’re the noisy neighbors in the building,” said Dustin Hall, freshman business administration major from Las Vegas. “At least on this floor.”
Hall said that most of the time he and his roommates have friends over and are playing video games.
“Usually [we make noise] in the evenings,” Hall said. “We try to hold off until the weekends before we start having a lot of fun and having people over just because we know people are doing homework.”
On the weekends, students are more likely to be off campus or out of town and Hall and his roommates feel like they can get away with a little more noise, he said.
Hall and his roommates had relay races in the hallway one Thursday evening and were asked to keep it down.
“They weren’t too happy about that,” Hall said. “But the [resident assistants] on this floor are pretty cool.”
Hall said he and his roommates are aware there are quiet hours but they aren’t exactly sure when they are. Around 11 p.m. they try to keep it down, Hall said.
Regina Burgess, a freshman media studies major from Phoenix, said she’s experienced problems with noisy neighbors when she’s trying to sleep at night.
“I’ve experienced banging on the ground and just very, very loud noises usually at night when I have class in the morning,” Burgess said.
Burgess said when the noises became habitual, she and her roommate would bang on the ceiling or scream up at their noisy neighbors to be quiet.
“They either ignored us or they would purposely get louder,” Burgess said.
After about two to three weeks, Burgess and her roommate approached their resident assistant about what they could do.
“Because the noise was short amounts of time she couldn’t really do much about it,” Burgess said. “If she walked past it would be quiet.”
After hearing from the resident assistant, Burgess and her roommate went to the housing office to ask what more they could do. The housing office spoke with Burgess’ resident assistants and the neighbors were talked to as well.
“I would probably first go to the neighbors, especially if I did know them,” Burgess said. “That way I don’t have to get another person involved.”
It’s better to confront someone when you’re having an issue rather than letting it get out of control, she said.
Jessica Gomez, a junior communication major from Mesquite, is a resident assistant at Campus View Suites.
“Each night a different [resident assistant] has the duty phone which is where students contact us about any noise complaints,” Gomez said. “From my experience with the duty phone in a week I’d say about five noise complaints.”
Resident assistants on duty have to report all noise complaints made on campus during quiet hours. When a noise complaint is made, the resident assistants go to where the noise is coming from and if they can hear anything, approach the people about the noise.
In rare occasions, the resident assistants can’t hear anything and ask the people who made the complaint if they can still hear any noise. If those issuing the noise complaint respond back, the resident assistants approach the neighbors making noise and remind them of quiet hours.
Gomez said that if anyone on campus is experiencing noisy neighbors, they are more than welcome to contact their resident assistant.
“We want to make your time here enjoyable and don’t want to have you hate living on campus because of noise, when we can easily fix the issue,” Gomez said. “We don’t find out about something until students leave because they didn’t want to contact their [resident assistant].”