Many RIT students are familiar with the situation of RIT’s laundry facilities. In fact, when I hear people complain about dorm life here, the laundry rooms are usually the subject. While it’s reasonable to say that most of the machines work, several do not. Some washers don’t agitate. Some take your money and don’t even do anything at all. Some dryers don’t actually produce any heat. And of course, all the machines that work fine are usually taken, depending on when you do your laundry.
I was faced with some of these problems a couple weeks ago when I went to do laundry under Saul. A lot of the machines were in use, and several were also in a state of disrepair. In some cases, this was obvious. I mean, I didn’t really think that the one dryer that was missing its door would do a very effective job of driing my clothes. In many cases, the state of the machines is ambiguous, indicated only by graffiti written in permanent marker on the side. I’ve found that sometimes you can trust this, sometimes you can’t. And then there are the ones with no indication of their problems whatsoever.
After washing my clothes, I struggled to find a dryer that was working and not in use. After a while, I decided to take a wild guess on one. After swiping my card, I pushed the button to start the machine. Nothing happened. Luckily, another dryer had just become free, so I moved over. However, even this one did not dry my clothes completely.
Many people complain about situations like this. And I will be among them: The situation is horrendous. It is sad that this institute does not take the laundry problems very seriously. Luckily, there is a solution. A simple one, in fact. When you find a broken machine, report it. After that dryer ate my $1.25, I was pissed. I know it’s not much, but is another annoyance. On the wall of the laundry room was a sign with a number to call to report issues. When I had the chance a few days later, I called the number and detailed my problems. I had no trouble getting a reimbursement for my lost money. I also took the opportunity to report several of the broken machines. And the next week when I went there again, progress was made. The dryer with no door now had a new door. Some of the other machines had been fixed too.
The situation is really quite simple. When you write “broke” or something like that on the side of the washing machines, it is hard to remove. If I recall correctly from talking to housing, there is a company the call in to remove the graffiti. And on top of that, noone can tell if the problem with the machine was fixed or not. As I mentioned, I’ve found graffitied machines that work fine.
When you call, you get the chance to actually make your voice heard. I know people have asked Simone and such, but we really need people to actually report the washers and dryers that need maintenance. If everyone did this, I’m not sure it would solve all our laundry issues. But things would improve. And it doesn’t take much time.
