No one ever warned me how much it would cost to do my laundry on campus.
And that’s only if the dryers are able to dry all your clothes in one cycle, which often is not the case. Though it seems MU has not updated its laundry room equipment for some time, by mere observation of the lack of efficiency and capability the older machines have, the original problem of overcrowded facilities has been solved by Residential Life’s contract with LaundryView.
By using the program, students can check the status of washers and dryers. The website features a layout of each individual laundry room and a key that indicates which are open and how far along machines are in their cycles. Options include available, in use, idle or unavailable (out of service machines). You also have the option to see usage reports that show the average hour-by-hour machine operation during the past two weeks. The rankings are divided between high, medium and none and are determined by the number of washers and dryers started within the hour. This information is certainly helpful but likely unnoticed. What I would really like to see is a timeline of how long residence hall washing and drying machines have been out of service, and possibly a date when they will be repaired. Right now, the process of cleaning clothes is simply frustrating.
Somewhat easing the stress of venturing to the laundry room are the alerts students can set up to let them know when washers and dryers have completed a cycle. These notifications, which can be sent to your phone or email, can also tell you when your items’ cycles are completed. This is necessary, and perhaps there should be a notification sent to every laundry room user so the transitions between cycles can run more smoothly and quickly. Still, LaundryView really does save you time. Before heading to the laundry room, you and your buddy can determine whether there would be enough “working” machines to finish the job.
The problem is that even some of the equipment in the newer residence halls, such as Excellence and Discovery, is not functioning correctly. Currently two washers in Discovery Hall and one in Excellence Hall are out of order. Even Defoe-Graham Hall has two washers and two dryers that need to be fixed. Clearly, this is not an issue of the buildings’ ages. LaundryView’s home page recognizes many people do their laundry at about the same time, which results in busy laundry rooms. And it has found a solution for that — now there is rarely a time when there are not enough machines open. But some people are still finding availability to be a problem, due to students having to dry their clothes multiple times so they are not damp.
Repairing washers and dryers needs to be a higher priority for Residential Life in order to satisfy student needs. There is no reason the long wait to do laundry should be due to poor performance quality, especially when LaundryView takes care of regulating equipment activity.
