Residents unhappy about deck door

Residents of Broad and Belvidere Apartments contend they are frustrated because they cannot enter their apartment complex from the parking deck.

When residents scan their identification cards and the building doors fail to open, they said they cannot enter the complex, causing them an inconvenience.

“Students have problems scanning their cards and the door won’t always open,” said a security guard for the apartment complex. “The scanner is not registering the cards.”

The security guard said the scanners used to work about half the time, but they are completely “shot” now.

Sonya Brown, a senior kinetic-energy major from Virginia Beach who lives in the housing complex, said the problem began sometime in June.

“It mostly affects people on the fourth floor,” she said. “I just park on the third floor because I don’t have to wait for security to buzz me in.”

But those parking on the fourth floor need security to buzz them in after they state their name and room number, Brown said. Those students then wait for security to check their clearance before they can enter the building.

Rod Burke, assistant director of facilities for residential life and housing, said most of the complaints have been verbal, and no written work orders have been sent to facilities management about this in the past few months.

“We are investigating the complaints,” Burke said.

The type of problem determines who needs to fix it, he said. If the problem pertains to mechanics, it could have been caused by students vandalizing the door by prying it open, which bends the door frame. In this case, he said maintenance workers would need to fix the framework.

If the problem pertains to an electronic error, he said the Department of Residential Life and Housing would contact the company that contracted with VCU for supplying all its control access doors.

“If you see someone vandalizing the door, report it to security,” he advised students. “If it’s not functioning properly report it to security immediately as well.”

To stay on top of the complaints, Burke said security guards and maintenance workers will handle daily routine checkups on the doors to ensure they are working properly.

“We consider our residents to be our customers,” he said. “We want to provide them with good customer service to make our residents happy.”