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Last week, Nyhetsuka’s reporter Andrea Njærheim Berg wrote a comment about how it is to live in Fantoft. Today we could hear complaints from residents again, and the Chairman of SiB addresses the problems in this reply:
SiB cares about Fantoft and our residents
It’s always troubling for us to read that some of our residents has had negative experiences, but know that SiB cares about Fantoft and our residents, and that we take your comments seriously.
In her comment on srib.no, the author points to several issues she has experienced in Fantoft. Although the responsibility of some of these issues are not SiB’s, we are nonetheless responsible for the overall well being of our residents. I would like to address some of these issues, and take a look at how we can resolve together.
The issue with brown and impure water in the tap is unfortunately difficult for us to mend. The brown water is delivered to us from Bergen Municipality’s grid, and they are the ones that need to fix the problem. The issue often occurs due to digging or upgrading of the water pipes. When they are doing this sort of work we’ll try to let our residents know in advance, and we of course have a close dialogue with the municipality to get them to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. It is unacceptable not to have clean water in the tap.
Internet is important for a student
If the Internet connection does not work in a satisfactory way, we are sorry. That’s not how it should be. We are fully aware of how important a stable and fast enough Internet connection is for the students. When we chose to change from Internet provided by the University of Bergen to the company Get, this was to ensure that each flat gets a stable and fast enough connection, not affected by University’s IT maintenance during the weekends.
The Internet speed was doubled in Fantoft because each apartment now gets 10 Mbps, instead of the whole of Fantoft sharing approximately 100 Mbps. 10 Mbps should be more than sufficient for normal Internet use, and we made it very reasonable to upgrade the speed for those who need more capacity. When each apartment has it’s own wireless router, this ensures your Internet speed is not affected by others downloading large files, or the University’s IT maintenance during the Saturday’s soccer match. We do of course maintain a close dialogue with Get to ensure that all the flats get the speed they should have.
It is hard to avoid garbage in the hallways
In regard to false fire alarms and trash being left in the hallways, this is a difficult issue for us as landlord. We use a great deal of resources to provide the tenants with information and education. We do this to make sure everybody know how to use the recycling, and how the fire alarm works. But if the tenants at Fantoft choose to throw garbage in the hallways, this is difficult for us to hinder. We expect our tenants to bring their trash to the garbage room themselves.
Furthermore, we have one of the safest and most modern fire safety systems available. This is to ensure that in case of fire, the fire department will arrive as soon as possible and everybody will get out safely. We have a reset system on every floor, so that the alarm can be turned off before it wakes up all the tenants in the hallway. But residents who set of a false alarm needs to reset the system themselves. Otherwise the alarm will go off.
The rehabilitation of Fantoft has already started
As a student welfare organization, it is one of our main missions to provide good and reasonable housing where students thrive. When some students report that they do not thrive at Fantoft, we need to take action. We are aware that Fantoft is an older building, built after older standards. This is visible, and the students that live at Fantoft see it daily. And this is why we are doing something about it. We’ve already come a long way in the planning of a full rehabilitation of Fantoft.
We are doing this to ensure that students, also in the future, are able to have Fantoft as a good home when they study in Bergen.
Listen to the reportage where the students and the tennants of Fantoft have some statements:
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