The Shire Mods have a lousy reputation among students, but what has caused this negative perception?
To the eyes of a freshman who lives in Trinity Hall, the Mods for me are viewed as prestigious and privileged. But many may disagree with me. I heard complaints about Mods and some shared with me the few dislikes about the area through different people and I got curious about what it feels like to live in the Mods.
So, I interviewed several students living in the Shire Mods about how they feel.
Malachi Hodge, a senior majoring in psychology, said, “I don’t view Shire Mods as bad. It might need improvement, but it’s a great place to live. The place feels homie, and I have a very close relationship with my roommates.”
When Hodge told me he loved his living area, I was surprised, but he continued elaborating. Although the Mods recently received renovations this past summer, there was still one thing he wanted to see changed: the parking lot.
“Although maybe one thing I think I want to see improvement is in the parking lot. The gates on the parking lot are closed on Sundays, which is unfortunate because you have to drive long to park in Mods. I hope they change it remotely, like the UV gates, where it just needs a button to open.” said Hodge.
Shinho Lee, a music and worship major, said that because he lives in the first-built mods, he has various discomforts he wants to point out. “The first thing is that because the mods I live in were the early-built models, the heater is old-fashioned, so when I slightly increase the temperature, it quickly fails. The door near the kitchen is rusty, and there are too many insects on mods.”
He also shared that although there is a fence that provides security, it is of no use because the security could be more reliable. Many homeless people can interfere with the mods without a problem, and many incidents of theft occur, so the mods make the students who live there feel insecure.
Additionally, Lee claimed that one of the two rooms in the mods is too small in size for two roommates to live in, so it’s incompatible. Plus, “the street lamps near mods are very dim, and inside the dorm, there is barely any light when it becomes night,” which makes it even more of a safety concern.
Shin Ryu, a sophomore majoring in accounting, said, “Compared to other dorm areas, Shire Mods is the farthest from classes, especially the place where I’m living classes feel very far. My place of residence is especially next to the baseball field, so the day there’s a game, it’s deafening and blasting. Lastly, there is only one bathroom for a group of four people, and it’s very inconvenient in any situation.”
Lee and Ryu are roommates in the same dorm. One discomfort they mentioned was the laundry room needed to be closer to their dorm.
One last story that I heard from mods was that mice were living within the Mods. I was quite surprised when they told me the story, making me question how they can catch the mice.
Listening to all of the discomfort and dislikes of the Mods, it made me question what it is like to live at the Mods. Perhaps I won’t be able to know until I walk in the shoes of the people who live in the Mods.