After being contacted by a whistleblower, The Varsity investigated Primrose Student Residence Program, a student residence run out of the Best Western Primrose Hotel at Carlton and Jarvis Streets.
PSRP offers flats at monthly rates upwards of $1,000 to post-secondary students from across the city. U of T has previously used the venue to house an overflow of students when residence spots were filled, the last case taking place seven years ago.
Student Program Relations Director Natalia Rolo said the residence currently houses over 300 students, a third of U of T students who choose to live in the space, and has welcomed roughly 500 students in total on varying intervals since last September.
The Varsity spoke with residents about their positive and negative experiences.
Bed Bugs
At least two rooms on the same floor reported bed bugs around late November.
“We have a pest control company here in place and they have their due diligence. They come in, they treat the room; we take it out of service,” said Rolo, noting that students are also sent information on how to prevent, identify, and report bed bugs. “Our goal is prevention. […] We are covered by a brand and we have to meet those assurance qualities.”
But liability for infestations has caused conflict.
“They were thinking of possibly charging us for spraying the room down. Because it wasn’t their fault, it was our fault,” alleged Korissa Wight, a fine arts student at OCAD.
“I didn’t see how it was my fault; it’s not like I have them where I’m from and I don’t take a lot of public transportation. I was mad and I was frustrated.”
Rolo said liability is determined on a case-by-case basis.
“We take every case individually. It really depends on the circumstances,” said Rolo. “For the most part, these bed bugs are being brought in from an outside environment so it really depends on the situation.
“If [a resident] admittedly acknowledges that they were at another place of residence [where] there has been a case of bed bugs, they would essentially be held responsible for it. If they [do so] and they’re coming back here and not laundering their clothing, if they’re not using preventative measures, then yes, they would be held responsible.”
Wight said she feels the administration’s info sheets aren’t enough.
“They neglected to tell us that our neighbours had had bed bugs,” said Wight. “They just kind of passed out a notice saying ‘look out for bed bugs’ or whatever. I think they should’ve had a meeting explaining it all to us, because I had never seen a bed bug in my life. I’d never really heard of them.”
Students also reported seeing mice and mousetraps. Rolo replied that both bedbugs and mice are commonplace in public places.
“Honestly speaking, we’ve had much worse years than this year [for bed bugs]. In light of what’s been in the media for the last few months, the bugs have been a huge issue, not in residences, but everywhere.”
She added that the mousetraps prove that management have acknowledged and responded to the problem.
PSRP faced complaints of bedbugs and mite infestations in the 1999–2000 academic year, but was reported to have improved its pest control.
Food
Some students complained about food offered by the meal plan, citing themed events that were cancelled and few high-protein options in daily buffet-style meals.
A leaked email specifies that the restaurant spends $5.75 on food per student per day, for both breakfast and lunch. This is a third of money students pay into the obligatory meal plan.
“It all goes towards the food and beverage department,” said Rolo. “The $5.75, that’s the food cost number. It doesn’t include production costs, doesn’t include labour costs. That’s just food alone.”
“We have expensive labour costs. […] Our staff is unionized, which means their wages are much higher than, let’s say, McDonald’s staff. So it goes to labour; we have chefs working that earn quite a bit of money along with the wait staff and management that work on the meal plan [including] electricity, supplies, inventory.”
“I think [the food] is pretty good. I am not saying it’s spectacular but I still think they are doing a good job in it,” said U of T student Nouhaila Chelkhaoui.
Internet
Residents pay $42 a month for high-speed Internet, included in the mandatory telecommunications package. Multiple students complained about the slow Internet connection. One student reportedly dropped a course because she couldn’t keep up with online assignments.
“The Internet can also be shitty at times,” said Chelkhaoui. “[But] there was never a time, since I have been here, where [the] Internet, as far as I’m concerned, was cut for more than three days.”
“Unlike other residences, we do not have a cap on our bandwidth consumption, so at the beginning of the year we did have some issues over peak periods,” said Rolo, adding that many were using the Internet for non-academic, high-bandwidth streaming and downloading.
“We’ve expanded our bandwidth. We are now constantly monitoring the network to make sure it is preserved for academic purposes.”
Collective Consequences
At one point last semester, over a dozen light fixtures were stolen. Students were given a letter saying that each would be charged $10 if no one confessed.
“[They were] gonna charge us as a collective group,” said Wight, frustrated.
“It’s just a very, very harsh tone and it always feels like management is against us,” said resident Johnson Solomon. “They rarely accept that they’re responsible for anything.”
The provincial Residential Tenancies Act does not cover certain types of housing, including some forms of student residences.
Instead, students sign a 13-page occupancy agreement upon registration at PSRP, including a code of conduct. Declining to email the document, Rolo said the agreement is “exclusive to registered students” but allowed The Varsity to peruse it in-person and take notes. Rolo said that dons review the code of conduct with students in a presentation at the start of their stay.
The agreement states the costs of damages in common areas are shared among students.
“Damage and cleaning fees can be assessed to residents for vandalism or repeated untidiness in common areas whether the damage can be attributed to a specific individual or not.”
Eventually, a resident confessed to stealing the light fixtures and returned them.
Room Privacy
Aaron Swan, a George Brown arts management student, was evicted last year after PSRP management entered his room on October 29 and allegedly found a bag of marijuana.
“While I was out, they went into my room, into all my stuff, searched through my whole room [and] two days later came to me and said I was evicted and gave me less than two hours to get all my stuff out,” claimed Swan.
“They invaded my privacy. I wasn’t even in the building when they went in there. And I didn’t even know that they had been in there until the day that they kicked me out.”
The occupancy agreement states that management is “permitted to enter the room and bedroom at any time and from time to time, without notice.” Rolo clarified that this is done for safety reasons.
“If there’s suspicion of drugs being stored in the room or held in the room, or if there’s abuse of alcohol, we will enter the room,” reads the agreement.
“Evictions occur for safety and security of all students, staff, in-house guests; everyone. We evict only when a student breaches our code of conduct,” said Rolo. “Generally, evictions occur when the student is involved in a zero-tolerance activity, such as illicit drugs.”
Swan said he was evicted “for a small bag of weed that they took a picture of, which they still today have not proven to me that that is a picture of my property.
“They had a picture of a bag and a little bit of weed in it, inside a random kitchen drawer, just one picture, and they said that was enough to evict me immediately,” alleged Swan, claiming that PSRP never presented the actual drugs in question.
Swan said he had to pay rent for November and December, although he alleged PSRP originally demanded payment for the rest of the academic year.
“If removed from the residence for disciplinary reasons, [residents] risk forfeiting the residence fee for the remainder of their term,” said Rolo.
“I stormed out of there, I was so pissed off,” said Swan, who now commutes from a relative’s home in Whitby.
Rolo said many students enjoy their time at PSRP, citing the large number of social events and an integrated online communication system for residence-wide communications, menu postings, and suggestions.
“Students are essentially from around the world, so it’s a very diverse program here. You get to meet many different types and groups of individuals,” said Rolo. “We do little things like that so that there’s a sense of community. A lot of students come from small-town Ontario so they want to be in an environment where they’re around other students, other people their age.
“I believe it’s a great place to live.”
