Last Friday, this paper ran a lead story exposing the awful living conditions of students in the UA-run Sky View apartments. Water didn't work. Electricity went out. Doors lacked doorknobs. The next day, the problems started being fixed. This is what needed to be done, but it never should have happened in the first place.

Complaints registered by the students went to through Residence Life. Supposedly, Residence Life then passed the work orders on to Eastern Way, the company which manages Sky View and several other local apartment complexes. The work order, once completed or rejected, would be passed back to Residence Life, which would direct it back to the student. Somewhere along the line, communication broke down. Maybe Residence Life never passed the complaints on. Maybe Eastern Way never got back to Residence Life. We'll probably never know; certainly, no one is eager to 'fess up in this matter. What's important are the facts: the apartments were never fixed, and disintegrated even further, from their originally dilapidated state.

If the poor living conditions at Sky View left many students deprived, the one thing in abundance is blame. Residence Life should be responsible for making certain that the students under its care have adequate living conditions and should facilitate solutions to any disputes between the property managers and the residents. Those companies running the properties under the domain of Residence life should ensure that any complaint about their facilities are reconciled as quickly and efficiently as possible. Students, too, bear some responsibility for the condition of the property in which they live. However, it is difficult to put too much of the responsibility on their shoulders. Some wear and tear is to be expected in a residence hall and more should be expected in an environment housing those who would normally be in a residence hall, but who, living in an apartment complex, are far more independent of normal supervision. Moreover, many of the residents are freshmen; exactly the sorts of students that Residence Life had proposed would not be in the apartment complexes run by the UA. Perhaps freshmen should not be put in a complex some distance from the calming influence of the campus.

But no matter who takes the blame, or who should take it, the situation remains the same. Students were going through the proper motions to have problems in their rooms repaired. They were not failing the system; the system was failing them. It continued to fail them for weeks, until the failure of the system was finally exposed, and those in power were forced to act. But that point is far too late. If a situation is ever so intolerable that the University is forced to action by the Wildcat, it should have been resolved long ago. We should be thankful that the problem was finally solved; but should take a lesson from how it was done.