Courtesy of usceiling.com
At the Riverview Apartments, the task of doing laundry is especially frustrating for several reasons. For one thing, the washing machines and dryers there each cost $1.75, so doing one load of laundry costs a minimum of $3.50. Meanwhile, the washers cost $2.50 in most on-campus dorms, and the dryers are completely free. While this difference may not sound like much, or the budget of a college student the price of washing laundry every week adds up quickly. Given that the price of staying in Riverview is already greater than any other dorm on campus, why must the laundry also be more expensive?
The problem is compounded because the dryers in Riverview are utterly inadequate at their one job: drying. Clothes are still sopping wet after the first run through, even on the highest setting. In other dorms, this is not a major issue because dryer usage is free, but — short of using a clothesline — students in Riverview must pay again just to get their clothes dry. Furthermore, this charge encourages students to cram their clothes into one dryer rather than spreading them out, increasing the risk of fires and shrunken clothes. It would be well worth increasing the cost of the washing machines in exchange for allowing students to dry clothes for free.
On top of these problems, the machines do not accept money from the URos flex account because they are managed by the apartment complex’s owners, as the UR currently only leases the buildings. Residents of the frat quad face a similar problem (though at least their dryers are free).
Instead, the machines only accept quarters, notwithstanding the fact that the average student doesn’t maintain a large cache of coins. The Riverview area office provides rolls of quarters, but it is closed on weekends and evenings — prime laundry times for most residents. The entire process would be simplified if change machines were installed in the laundry rooms so that students could get quarters directly.
