Laundry piles up for on-campus residents

One of the less exciting and frequently painful experiences of college life is washing your clothes. Like some people I learned how to do my own laundry in high school so I was somewhat prepared for the dorm laundry experience. When compared to the papers, reading assignments, internships and other class requirements, doing laundry does not sound like too great of a challenge. Yet many students dread this chore. I believe part of the problem lies not with the actual chore but with the limited number of machines in the on-campus facilities.

One of the easiest ways to make your laundry experience less frustrating is to wash your clothes during non-peak hours. Although this is not always practical, there will generally be fewer people, and therefore more available machines, washing their clothes on a weekday morning or afternoon than there are on Saturday or Sunday.

Probably the most important rule of laundry room etiquette is removing clothes from your washer or dryer on time.

Most on-campus residents who rely on the laundry facilities provided by the university have stories about waiting 30 minutes or more to begin their laundry because all of the available machines have finished their cycles but students have forgotten to pick up their clothes.

At this point this issue becomes whether or not to remove the clothes and, if they are removed, where should they be placed. It is generally considered polite to allow a grace period of at least ten minutes before removing the clothes.

Several of the apartment complexes have chosen to make this informal grace period official and give students permission to remove clothes from machines if they are not retrieved within 15 minutes after the cycle has ended.

I agree that returning to the laundry room to pick up your clothes and finding them in a pile is frustrating. But at some point the needs of those waiting for machines need to take precedence over someone who has forgotten their clothes or is running half an hour late.

When removing clothes from a washer or dryer, they should always be placed on a table or bench, never on the floor.

Placing clothes on the floor just means the clothes will have to be rewashed and the laundry room will be further congested.

Finally, always clean the lint catcher after using the dryer. If lint builds up over several cycles it can make clothes dirty in addition to being a fire hazard.