VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) — Norfolk State University students have sounded the alarm about poor living conditions at one of the overflow hotels the college is housing them in.
“The first thing that you smell is mold and mildew,” student Zamiah Davis said.
Davis is just one of many students who have recently made similar claims about the Holiday Inn on Greenwich Road in Virginia Beach.
“Once you start to inspect the rooms you’ll see mold on the picture frames, you’ll see mold in the AC units,” Davis said, explaining her account of the conditions in her former room. “There’s mold all over the bathroom on the toilet roll holder, there’s mold on that, inside of the cubbies under the sink, there’s mold on there.”
Davis has since moved out of the hotel, but said the mold, bugs and more forced her to sleep in her car for a night.
“I ended up sleeping in my car that night I did find a good room,” Davis said. “I came back and there was a bed bug on the bed.”
She went to Norfolk State and the hotel with her complaints.
She told 10 On Your Side that after trying four different rooms, the university was able to put her in a different dorm, but Davis said the hotel gave her the runaround.
“We have gone downstairs, me and a residential director over at the Holiday Inn, we’ve gone downstairs and have tried to talk to somebody about it including the mold being on the picture frame,” Davis said. “She said we can’t remove it.”
And she isn’t alone.
All week students have been posting on social media of their own accounts, many of them calling it horrible.
In response, NSU released a statement on Instagram saying the university is aware of recent social media posts regarding one of the overflow hotels it uses to house students.
“We are working to address the concerns of our students in conjunction with hotel management staff,” the NSU statement said.
The Virginia Beach Department of Public Health said they’ve received several complaints about this hotel just Friday. They say they’re sending an environmental health specialist to perform an assessment.
The Holiday Inn tells me they are not releasing a statement about this situation.
