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Residence hall laundry machines losing card readers to cut costs

October 7, 2015
<p>Accounting sophomore Asia Hudson takes her laundry out of the dryer on Oct. 5th, 2015, inside Butterfield Hall.</p>

Accounting sophomore Asia Hudson takes her laundry out of the dryer on Oct. 5th, 2015, inside Butterfield Hall.

Photo by Joshua Abraham | The State News

The largest change the REHS has made to the laundry services this year is the disabling of card readers located in laundry rooms.

In years past, students would have to swipe their ID cards to prove their dorm residency in order to use the washers and dryers. However, this year REHS decided to disable card the readers in the residence halls in order to keep costs down, Kat Cooper, director of communications of REHS said.

Disabling card readers though raises the issue of off-campus students and even non MSU students coming into the dorms to utilize the laundry rooms.

“We do have some concerns about off-campus residents using the rooms at the expense of our on-campus residents as some some laundry rooms are accessible to the public,” Cooper said. “We have the ability to check in on the rooms to ensure they are being used properly by on-campus residents.”

Cooper said MSU began offering free laundry services in order to help MSU students, and it has been sustained based on upgrades they have made to their laundry facilities, and the adjustments in other areas of their budget they made to absorb the cost.

“We have worked directly with our vendor to upgrade all of the washers and dryers to be energy efficient and reduce our water consumption per load.” Cooper said. “Which reduces costs and enhances our efforts to be Spartan green.”

Athletic training sophomore Kristina Lewis, said she has noticed a bit of a dropoff in the cleanliness of the laundry rooms this year compared to years past.

“Last year, it was definitely a lot cleaner. There was always a cleaning lady downstairs making sure the laundry room was well-kept but, this year, there are always clothes laying around,” Lewis said.

Cooper said REHS’s staff and facility team works very hard to maintain a clean and accessible laundry room for students.

“Our REHS facility team cleans the laundry rooms every day, seven days per week,” Cooper said. “Additionally, our teams have increased the rounds during the afternoon and evening of the laundry rooms to maintain the cleanliness of rooms.”

Mechanical engineering sophomore Kimberly Boyne, also said she has noticed the laundry rooms have not been exceptionally well maintained thus far this year.

“If you accidently drop something on the ground that is already clean, it’s annoying because of how dirty the laundry rooms are,” said Boyne.

Cooper added the REHS facility team cannot tend to the room non-stop, so they have asked resident assistants to encourage residents to clean up after themselves in order to keep the facilities in order.

Philosophy sophomore Zach Racine said he gets frustrated by the response time in fixing broken machines.

This can lead to a longer wait time for some, as less operational machines are available.

“One dryer has been out of order in North Case for three weeks and it makes me frustrated because it is taking up my time waiting for an open dryer,” Racine said.

Cooper said they have been working to make sure all of the washers and driers in the dorms are functioning, but with increasing number of students, leading to increased usage, problems such as broken or overused driers can arise.

“This past summer we worked directly with our vendor to replace dryers in many of our residence halls,” Cooper said. “This fall, we have also noticed an increase in the usage of washers and dryers compared to last fall.”

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