Stench Fills Adams House Dining Hall

The blackboard outside the Adams House dining hall reads, "It smells in there."

Both students and administrators are concerned about an alien odor that has plagued the room for almost two weeks.

Frank A. Marciano, the Buildings and Grounds superintendent for the area, explained yesterday that a leaky sewage pipe spilled its contents into a crawlspace under the kitchen, causing the odor that first appeared on Monday, Oct. 9. After three days of searching for everything from blocked drains to dead rodents, repairmen discovered the lead and replaced the pipe last Thursday.

After cleaning up the spillage, the workers began to ventilate the dining area and the crawlspace with chlorine.

No More Stench

Cambridge Health Department representative Joseph DeLeo, who has worked along with the University in this affair, said yesterday, "The problem is solved."

But Adams House residents are not convinced, for, as one diner said, "It's better now, but it's gotten better before and then gotten worse."

Ross Green '80 of Adams House, said that he wonders whether food will become contaminated in the area of the odor.

Marciano said he is confident that the area is sanitary, although "the odor persists."

"I can't say we're going to be able to get rid of 100 per cent of those residual odors," he continued.

Ugh

No one has told Adams House students the cause of the smell. A notice in the dining hall says that the authorities are working hard to cure the remaining problem, and dining hall director Robert T. Martin said yesterday. "When the odor's gone, then we'll be satisfied."

Moose

Breaks in sewage pipes are nothing new, according to Marciano, but one bursting near the dining area is unprecedented. A pipe broke several years ago in a different part of Adams, he said.

"I have been here 24 years and I've never known anything like that to happen," Martin said.

The odor is often very overpowering around breakfast, but the heavy cooking for lunch and dinner seems to drive the fumes out of the dining area. Unfortunately, Gree said, migrating odors "can made the library virtually uninhabitable."