At Grand View University (GVU), doing laundry has become an unexpected source of daily frustration for residential students, so much so that some students have begun calling it the “laundry crisis.” What should be a simple, routine task has turned into a reoccurring battle against broken machines, wasted time and lost money.
The laundry rooms are often filled with washers and dryers marked out of order, leaving students scrambling to find working machines or waiting long amounts of time for one to open up. Even when a machine appears to be working, there is no guarantee it will actually do its job. Clothes frequently come out still soaked or barely dried, forcing students to pay for multiple cycles just to end up with wearable laundry. Each wash and dry costs $1.25, but the machines do not always deliver the service the students are paying for. Cards are charged, cycles start and yet the results are far from what is promised. For students already balancing tuition, housing costs and everyday expenses, the constant loss of laundry adds up quickly. More than just a small inconvenience, the laundry crisis reflects a larger issue of accountability and functionality. Instead of a basic necessity, it is now a shared source of stress and frustration across campus.
Walking into a typical laundry room on campus, the problem is immediately visible. A number of washers and dryers are often marked “Out of Order,” sometimes for days or even weeks at a time. This leaves a limited number of machines available for hundreds of students on campus. As a result, laundry rooms quickly become crowded, especially during peak times like the weekends. Students wait for extended periods of time to find a machine available or even return multiple times just to find an opening. What used to take an hour or two to complete laundry can now stretch into an entire evening.
Even when students manage to find a machine that “works,” there is no guarantee it will actually work properly. Many washers fail to fully clean clothes or leave them soaking wet, while dryers often require multiple cycles to get clothes fully dry. This creates a frustrating cycle where students have to pay again and again just to achieve basic results. For college students managing tight budgets, this becomes more than just a simple issue.
Adriano Roma, the third floor RA for Langrock Suites, has seen firsthand how the laundry crisis has impacted his weekly routine.
“Laundry in Grand View isn’t the best especially in Langrock. We have four washing machines total and two of them are broken, so there’s only two for a three-floor building which is not a lot,” Roma said.
While some machines are out of order, others malfunction, causing students to repeat cycles and extend their laundry time.
“You can say double, sometimes you have to wash twice and dry twice. Instead of two hours it could be a period of four hours,” Roma said.
One way Roma has worked around this issue is by submitting refund requests.
“I found out in the app if you request a refund and you write down the reason they will refund you. Before I knew you could request refunds, I would pay double sometimes triple for dryers. For me it’s not a big difference, but I know for a fact that other students struggle with this, and it is a huge difference for them,” Roma said.
Roma recently transferred from Simpson college this past semester and gave his insight about his experience with laundry at his previous college.
“At Simpson laundry was free, there were machines in every building even in the frat house where I lived, and the machines everywhere were owned by Simpson. You only had to pay for your soap, and the use of the machine was completely free,” Roma said.
Another student Andre Leandro, has experienced a similar experience how the laundry crisis has affected his daily life.
“It happens quite often that I had to rewash it again or put it to dry multiple times. Last game I didn’t have my clothes to play, because I had to put it to dry again,” Leandro said.
Many students face the struggle to keep having to put more and more money just to keep their clothes clean and dry. International students especially are struggling with this issue balancing school, basic necessities and now laundry.
“Being an international student, the currency is not very good for me right now, I have to spend a lot of money and ask for my parents to send me more money because of this,” Leandro said.
To better understand the situation from an administrative perspective, Nolan Owensby, one of the hall directors shared his insight on the issue and how students can help.
“Our laundry machines are from another company. And I try to update the machines every week and let them know the ones that are out of service, and they have not been doing a very good job of getting back in contact with us. It’s really helpful if a student can put one of those out of order stickers and if they’re able to put their name and kind of what’s wrong with it, it’s super helpful,” Owensby said.
Although GVU is aware that some machines are not working properly, they have limited ability address the issue because the machines are owned and maintained by another company. To address this issue GVU has come up with a possible solution.
“I know we’ve talked a little bit about maybe switching the company we work for or maybe buying our own machines because the laundry machines in Knudsen, Grand View actually owns, so those ones, maintenance is able to work on. I think for sure, start of next school year, hopefully we’ll see a change,” Owensby said.
While GVU is working hard to address and fix the laundry machine issue, they have come up with a helpful solution for the meantime.
“We’re going to start doing free laundry Friday and students are going to be able to come in and get a free load of laundry as long as they’re willing to just mark off which washer they use, which dryer they used, and if they had any issues or not. Free laundry Friday will be from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. every Friday. Hopefully that’ll get us an idea of how many issues the students are running into and just give them a chance to kind of be reimbursed in that way,” Owensby said.
In response to the ongoing laundry crisis, GVU has begun taking steps to improve the situation and better support its students. Efforts are underway to explore partnerships with new laundry service providers or even owning laundry machines in hopes of bringing more reliable machines and faster maintenance. In the meantime, initiatives like free laundry Fridays have been introduced to help ease the struggle of doing laundry. GVU is understanding student concerns and are working toward resolving the issue. Until then, the simple act of doing laundry will remain an ongoing battle, one that students across campus know all too well.
