Laundry day struggles | The Triangle

Laundry day struggles

Wikimedia: Tc terencec
Wikimedia: Tc terencec

Moving into my new apartment in University Crossings was a blessing. I felt about as excited as Harry Potter moving from his bed in the stairwell to his new room except for the fact that Harry undoubtedly had a bigger place to start with than Millennium. The bedroom in University Crossings is massive and the living room is so big that we have absolutely no idea what to do with the extra space. The full kitchen is a nice touch, too. It has refrigerator so large no college student would ever hope to be able to stock it fully. I felt good for my first week there.

Laundry day hit without any big incidents in the new apartment (besides a noticeable lack of hot water, but that’s another story). For those who are unfamiliar with the University Crossings building, there are several laundry machines per floor with several dryers next to them. Oh yeah, and laundry is $1.75 per load. And then it’s $1.75 to dry. That’s a lot of money to spend week after week, so it is no surprise that I put it off to the point of desperation. After lugging my overstuffed basket down the hall and loading everything into a washer, I swiped my card and was met with beeping and the word “BAD”.  After several more swipes and a few more judgements on my life, the machine finally beeped in confirmation and displays “Conn”. I hit start. Nothing happened. Trying another only yielded the same result, and much to my frustration (and that of the two other people that share my plight) I could not seem to find out how to start it.

I called the number on the machine hoping for an answer, but after ten minutes of the most soul-shattering waiting music, the lady on the other end informed me that she didn’t know what “Conn” meant. Let that sink in. A company whose one, single job in this world is to rent out washing machines does not inform their workers of basic error messages. Apparently, a “technician” could come out and service the machine later that week. Fine.

My friends were no help. It seems that I am the only college student in this building who doesn’t have enough clothes to go three weeks without doing laundry. Other buildings that are run by the same company and have the same laundry system are both cheaper and working. Where did we go wrong? Finally, one hero informed me that the fifth floor machines work without a problem. For the first time this term, I did not have to plan my wardrobe around what was clean. Words cannot describe how satisfying it is to put on a clean pair of socks after days of using dress socks and soccer socks to offset my lack.

Words also cannot describe how infuriating it is to come back from doing laundry only to realize that I was charged $7.00 for a single load. Sighing, I picked up the phone again.

So University Crossings, if you are so committed squeezing out more money from college-kids, can you at least make sure your system works? Running a pyramid scheme is deplorable, but a non-functioning one is just sad.