Residence Life - Part 1 - Laundry

Paying for laundry sucks. There's no question - everybody agrees. It's expensive, annoying, and you always have to wait for a machine. For the last 4 years, I've had free laundry right outside my door. Sometimes there was waiting, but there was also a good relationship in the house such that I could just cycle laundry through and put mine in. I would fold other people's laundry and they'd fold mine. It was a nice little thing we had going on.

The laundry here is pay laundry, but it's the best pay laundry facilities I have ever used. First of all, you don't need coins. That's right. You just take your student card to this machine and you load money on it. Now, the machine CLAIMS you can use your VISA, but I tried and it wouldn't read my card. I was warned that the machine didn't always work. But regardless, I was able to load cash onto my card. So, then you take that card and all the machines just take the cards. You put it in, it tells you your total, and then you push what you want, and off you go! Easy! Loads are $1.25 to wash and the same to dry. No more carrying around quarters and loonies! No more scrounging! And since you need your student card to pay for laundry and to let you back into your room, you'll never forget your room key. Because you need it for laundry! So, no getting locked out when you go to do laundry!

And the machines are in GOOD SHAPE. They're front loading washers and they hold a fairly large load. And unlike most laundromats, you can put a large load in the washers, and the driers actually DRY the load! WOW!

Now, my other secret to doing laundry in a laundromat, especially in residence or a building where lots of students live, is to go on a Friday or Saturday night. Yeah yeah, I'm a loser and I should be out. Well, the fact is that I don't like partying and I don't really like "going out". At least not very often. However, most other people do. So, while they're gone, nobody is using the laundry room, which leaves it open for me. No pushing, shoving, waiting, throwing laundry on top of machines - they're just there waiting to be used. It's great.

While it sucks to pay for laundry, I think I lucked out here and laundry is not going to be a concern at all.