Residence students are voicing their frustration over problems with on-campus laundry facilities in an online petition launched Feb. 8 on change.org.
The petition, which has 39 supporters as of Feb. 11, was created because Frontenac House’s laundry room was consistently inaccessible due to issues with its card readers.
Marissa Matthews, the second-year history student living in Frontenac who started the petition said she’s had issues with laundry machines in other buildings.
“I lived in Lennox and Addington last year and there were times when my washer didn’t get all the water out, or the dryer didn’t even dry any of my clothes so I ended up wasting $10,” she said.
Director of Housing Laura Storey said besides Frontenac, residence laundry machines are working well.
The most recent stretch of problems began about a week ago in Frontenac with the card readers working on and off, Storey said.
“When we find that it’s off, we reset it as soon as possible and it comes back on,” she said.
As a result, students living in Frontenac brought their laundry to Prescott House.
Matthews said she had to find a residence fellow in Prescott House to allow her into the building for each load of laundry.
“It was a hassle and took like three hours because I had to wait for the machines because so many people were doing their laundry,” she said.
An email sent out to Frontenac residents on Feb. 9 said a new card reader and power supply were installed while the reader’s network was modified.
However, an email sent out on Feb. 11 said problems were still persisting and arrangements were being made for Frontenac residents to use facilities in other buildings.
Later in the day, an email from Housing said laundry facilities in Lennox and Addington residence were not available for use by Frontenac residents and instead, they are trying to give students access to laundry facilities in Stormont.
Housing services apologized to Frontenac students and said it is continuing to investigate the problem.
Jessica Lemke, a second-year social work student living in Frontenac, said the laundry facilities in her building have been going down every other week while taking roughly the same amount of time for it to be fixed.
“I’m getting sick of having to cart an excess of baskets and bags back home with me on weekends because I haven’t been able to do my laundry for two weeks,” she said. “I mean, I’m paying $8,000 to live here.”
Rideau River Residence Association vice-president (administration) and president-elect Graham Pedregosa said he met with housing services on Feb. 11 to ensure laundry services would be fully operational.
Storey said students should contact housing services or the residence desk if they have any further issues with laundry facilities.
