It has become a regular occurrence for Jalal Omari to leave the laundry room at Village at Centennial Square frustrated with wet piles of clothes after giving them a full run through the dryer.
This semester has brought more challenges for students, including multiple days of no heat coming out of the dryers and ongoing repairs that have lasted for several weeks. A continuing trend is issues stemming from 2023, such as high traffic and long wait times.
“I’ve had problems where I would put it on high heat but it wouldn’t fully dry all of my clothes,” Omari said. “I’ve had one situation before where I dried the clothes twice and it still wouldn’t.”
Repairs in this laundry room began on Feb. 7, and the Student Housing Office sent out an email to notify residents.
“Please be advised that approximately 4 dryers in the Village A laundry room will be down tomorrow, February 7, 2024, for repairs,” the email said. “The repair should be completed by the end of the day.”
In the days following these repairs, the laundry room stopped working altogether for one day. After this, the machines worked again, but the dryers stopped producing heat for several days, and students were left with clothes that were still wet after one cycle.
Malfunctioning washing machines have also caused problems for students.
“When it comes to the washers, I think the only issue is how the dispensers are never clean,” said Mikayla Robinson, a Village resident. “I actually got my jeans bleached because of it.”
The heat was restored to the dryers less than a week after not producing any heat. However, eight dryers are currently undergoing maintenance and these specific dryers have been out of service for multiple weeks. Outside of this, everything has been working more smoothly in the Village laundry room recently.
“I’ve noticed that there’s less waiting time,” said Miriam Uriostegui, another Village resident. “Things are getting better.”
Village residents also have complaints that stem from multiple washing and drying machines out of commission for days at a time.
“I’ve heard of people doing their laundry in other dorms,” Uriostegui said. “People shouldn’t have to go out of their way to do that. It’s so time-consuming.”
The lowest price for a standard room at Village at Centennial Square is $1,638. This does not include fees for the mandatory meal plan that comes with the dormitory building. In addition, one cycle in a washer costs $2, while one cycle in a dryer costs $1.50.
“I feel like the laundry room should be free to use,” Uriostegui said. “You’re paying to live here, you’re paying so much for tuition, it should just be part of the housing cost.”
“We shouldn’t have to pay a bunch of money to wash our clothes when we already are paying, like, $1,600 for rent,” Robinson said. “It probably should be included, or we should get some sort of vouchers for the semester.”
Since the first email on Feb. 7, the housing department has not notified Village at Centennial Square residents about what is going on with the washers and dryers. University Housing declined to comment on the topic.
