The buildings will not receive the complete overhaul that first-year students witnessed this year in Weld and Matthews Halls. And despite residents' concerns about the structural integrity of their living quarters, the project will focus on just a few trouble spots that can be traced to flaws in the original design.

Other residents say that although they are pleased with Peabody because of its convenience, they were forced to make repeated maintenance complaints, some of which will not be addressed during the three-year repair cycle.

And some say they do not believe the changes selected by Harvard Real Estate will address other structural problems, such as Walker's leaking roof, which they have had with the apartments.

Keller says the only structural change that will be made will be new plumbing because of time constraints. Historically, tenants have complained most often about the plumbing system.

Maria V. Mauroudi, a Peabody resident and a student at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, says she had to call on a regular basis to have her pipes cleaned.

"I used to call them every one-and-a-half to two months to have them unclog the pipes," Mauroudi says.

In a January 8 letter to Vice President for Administration Sally H. Zeckhauser, Nancy Hurley, who lived at Peabody Terrace until this year, complained of pigeon feces on the balcony of her apartment.

Hurley wrote, "Our balcony [was] rendered unusable by the accumulation of pigeon feces (which we could only get adequately cleaned up after the city health inspector issued Harvard a citation)."

A copy of the citation obtained by The Crimson indicates the pigeon feces were removed.

Hurley also wrote that garbage frequently came up her drain into the bathtub, and this plumbing problem was never fixed.

"My family and I moved several months ago, partly because of the type of health code violations you see in the pictures, partly because I could not, on my support-staff salary from Harvard, afford the extortionate rent Harvard charged me and my husband," Hurley wrote.

Zeckhauser, Cornell and Keller have all said they were aware of the pigeon problem.

But, as Zeckhauser added, "[we] don't know what to do about the pigeons." Cornell, who is responsible for responding to tenants complaints, said that it is illegal to kill the pigeons.

Instead, she said, the only legal way to ameliorate the problem is to discourage the pigeons from returning. Desperate exterminators have even used glue to trap one pigeon to the railing in order to warn away other birds.

Harvard Real Estate and other administrators have long been aware of these problems. But the renovation process will be slow. And that means some residents of Peabody will remain mired in conditions like Walker's until the renovations are complete in the fall of 1995.