Groans sound from every student’s mouth at the slightest mention of the dorm’s laundry facilities. With three to four washing machines and dryers for an entire building, the choices for machines that are available seem dismal.

“I think they’re subpar,” first-year Jennifer Rosario and resident of the third floor of Sorin said. “The [washing machine] on the right has a smell to it. It’s just like an old water smell and it transfers to the clothes. So I don’t do my laundry here anymore and I wish I could because it makes it so inconvenient.”

With 70 washing machines and dryers across campus, including the dorms, apartments, three houses and a guest house, there are plenty of stories about students refusing to do their laundry on campus.

“I don’t trust them,” first-year Rachel Gray who lives in Schilling said after talking about her favorite shirt almost being destroyed by a Tide POD from the washing machine not washing it all away. She takes her laundry home now.

The complaints don’t stop at the washing machines. The dryers are the nemesis of many students. Stories circulated of students having to put clothes through the dryer three times and still hanging them back in the room damp.

“The left dryer doesn’t dry,” first-Year Brayden Maass who lives in Osborn said.

All machines on campus were replaced two to three years ago, including the ones in the dorms, apartments, the three houses and the guest house. The maintenance is overseen by CSC ServiceWorks. CSC ServiceWorks is based in New York, but its regional headquarters are in Minneapolis.

“The last service request came in on Oct. 27 and was repaired that same day,” Regional Manager of the Academic Division Kristina Wagner stated in an email. “On average the machines are repaired in two business days.”

Once a week a technician from CSC ServiceWorks comes to campus and does a walk through to make sure all the machines are working, even if a service call hasn’t been placed. Thirty-four requests were placed last year.

“In the beginning of the semester we tend to receive more service requests as newer students are learning how to use the machines and often their misuse causes the machine to malfunction and require service,” Wagner said.

Students are charged $120 per academic year to use washing machines and for the maintenance, which is incorporated into tuition.

Dean of Students Javier Gutierrez explained the decision on the number of machines in each building, which is decided by the setup of the room because the buildings only have so much water and power to sustain the machines and allow them to drain.

When asked what his response was to student’s complaints about the laundry facilities, Gutierrez said that students need to watch that they’re not overloading the machines.

“They can call and put a work order in directly,” Gutierrez said.   

Students can submit work orders for the laundry machines at http://www.macgray.com/laundrylinx. The login info is “ham.”