A plumbing leak flooded several rooms on the ground floor of LXR Hall with what some residents said appeared to be sewage Sunday morning, forcing the evacuation of at least five students.

LXR resident Abby Gardner (COL ’08) said she discovered the leak at about 10 a.m, when she woke up to brush her teeth only to find dirty water leaking from the ladies’ restroom. Gardener said she informed a resident assistant who notified university facilities personnel.

“The smell was nasty,” Gardner said.

University officials awoke students in five rooms as the leakage of dirty water continued. The students, all females, were placed in temporary housing.

Karen Frank, vice president of facilities and student housing, said that facilities employees are currently working to replace the carpet in the affected rooms. The work is scheduled to be completed today, and residents will be allowed to move back in, Frank said.

“It appears that it was some clog in the pipe somewhere that was moved or dislodged,” she said. “There wasn’t much damage because it was limited to the floor.”

Frank said that, after initially shampooing and disinfecting the carpet, facilities workers had decided to remove the carpets entirely.

The contaminated water backed up through a drain in the ladies’ restroom and flooded into the hallway, affecting five rooms before maintenance was finally able to stop the leak.

Kristina Lal’s (MSB ’08) and Lizette Baghdadi’s (COL ’07) room received the worst of the flooding, which at one point filled their room with over an inch of standing water, they said.

Though no personal items in any room were destroyed or damaged, Lal said that a bad odor still lingered.

“The smell is in everything: the clothes, the sheets, the towels,” she said. Lal and Baghdadi have decided to move into another vacant space in LXR on a permanent basis, Lal added.

Other evacuated students have been moved into temporary rooms across campus, Frank said.