Many students at the University of Rhode Island are saying they are less than satisfied with the school’s washing machines and dryers for a number of different reasons.
 
Even though students understand problems like paying for washer and dryer usage is very important, some feel prices should be decreased or eliminated altogether since they’re already paying so much money to attend the university.
 
“I think they cost too much money,” junior engineering student and Eddy Hall resident Josh Wolf said. “A lot of my friends at their other schools, they have free washing machines and dryers.”
 
“I fly through money pretty quickly on my card,” fellow junior engineering major and suitemate of Wolf, Brad Carvalho said.
 
Both students said they usually wash and dry their clothes in two loads once a week racking up to about six dollars each time they use the laundry room in their hall. With thirteen weeks in the fall 2013 semester at URI including holidays, Wolf and Carvalho have spent about $156 in total on cleaning their clothes.
 
Charles Hall, assistant director of housing and overseer of facility operations at URI said that although students may have a problem with paying to wash their clothes every time they do so and some, at all, the use of the machines needs to be paid for in one way or another.
 
“Well we have a contract with Automatic Laundries,” Hall said. “So you’re either going to pay for it by the usage or we would have to raise the room rate to cover the leasing of the washers and dryers so you would be paying for it either way.
 
While both Carvalho and Wolf said that they do understand that use of washing machines and dryers have to be paid for in one way or another, their main concerns lie in the sanitary form of things.
 
“They’re always broken and there’s always bleach in them,” Wolf said. “That’s not okay when it ruins all of my clothes.”
 
“There’s leftover soap in there sometimes and a lot of gross stuff,” Carvalho said.  “No one cleans them so it’s kind of gross.”
 
In regards to bleach staining and in some cases, ruining student’s clothing, Hall said that it was the first time he heard that complaint, but if the student’s want something to be done about it, something can be put in place to prevent damaged clothing.
 
“That’s interesting, I guess if there is interest from the residents about that, we could at least work with signage saying please don’t use bleach in these and have one for bleach used in it.”
 
Hall also said that unless students or residence hall staff report broken machines, nothing can be done to fix them even though the company the school goes through for maintenance is very reliable.
 
“If they’re reported, then we can get the company in to repair them, Hall said. “The hard part is if students fail to report it to us, then we don’t know that there’s a problem with that particular washer or dryer. Whenever I have a maintenance concern, we have the technician arrive on the campus the next day so I find their response times very good.”