Campus Cleaners

<p>My sons school offers a laundry service. Its around $300 for the year. He is willing to use his money to pay for it ("it will save time"). Are there problems with these type of campus laundry services or are most people happy with them?</p>

<p>Never heard of it, but it would have been awesome if we'd had that at my school...the time you waste doing laundry, waiting for dryers to open up, is just ridiculous.</p>

<p>i know there is something like that at a couple of schools, but not run by the schools, and i have heard good things -- $300 for the year is really not bad though especially if he'll be doing a lot of laundry</p>

<p>i dont think it's worth it. Odds are, dropping off laundry requires more effort than doing it (i.e. the drop point is far away from your dorm, laundry machines are usually in the dorm). 2nd, the way they wash your clothes is they throw your clothes into mesh bags and wash the mesh bags together in a super giant commercial washer (at least thats how the place at my school did it). If you avoid doing your laundry at peak times (i.e. sunday) you can usually do it without waiting for a machine at all.</p>

<p>dang, my school is $750 for the whole year, I am thinking about doing it if my parents pay half, our drop off point is right outside the dorm, and they claim to wash it with a "just like mom" method, whatever that means. I just feel that if my parents are paying 50k a year for me to go to fancy pants private school, I shouldnt be wasting time waiting at a washing machine for clothes to wash/dry + washing sheets and towels can be a hassle if you already have a bunch of clothes to wash, and then there is the hassle of the laundry machines being occupied, and to sum it all up, you still need to put quarters in the darn things. For you, especially at $300 I say do the laundry service.</p>

<p>My school charged you by the pound. It got really expensive and wasn't worth doing unless your parents had 0 problems fronting the whole bill.</p>

<p>I'd be worried that my clothes would be lost/damaged by them. The place I work for has uniforms cleaned by a uniform company and I can't tell you how many times I have put perfectly good things in and got it back with buttons missing/new stains/nothing in return. You also have to think that some clothes require hot/cold/dry clean/hang dry and there is nothing saying that they will follow the label directions.</p>

<p>if i knew someone who lived on my hall had a laundry service, i'd probably think they were pretty spoiled..</p>

<p>I didn't use a laundry service, but a hallmate did. Every Monday (or whatever the day of the week it was - I don't remember), a big laundry bag would be waiting outside his room. So, I guess reliability (in terms of time) wasn't a problem. But I can imagine that laundry services might not be good for clothes that need to be hand-washed or whatever.</p>

<p>Since guys generally have fewer articles of clothing that demand extra washing care, this service might be worth it. Also, your son might want to consider how big his typical load of laundry is.</p>

<p>On the other hand, your son might not save enough time to justify the $300. Sure, on your own, you have to wait for washers and dryers, but that's only if you do the laundry during peak hours. Also, washers take ~40 minutes while dryers take ~60 minutes. Unless you're at a school where you have to babysit your laundry to prevent theft (in which case you can still catch up on reading), that time adds up to almost 2 hours in which you can get something done, whether it's catching up on TV episodes or doing a reading for class.</p>

<p>Also, check how much doing a load of laundry costs at the school. I've heard of fairly exorbitant costs (but I'm not sure how accurate the info was), while one load cost $2 at my school. </p>

<p>I personally loved doing the laundry because 1) it forced me to get up early so that I'd not only avoid peak times, but I'd also be able to get stuff done, 2) I didn't have to worry about how my laundry was being done (cold vs. warm and such), and 3) it was about the only domestic chore I did, so it helped me feel more at home at school.</p>

<p>Edit: It might be worth investigating how widely this service is used on your son's campus. At less wealthy schools, some people might view this in a negative light.</p>

<p>Is it honestly that hard to do laundry?</p>

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Is it honestly that hard to do laundry?

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<p>QFT.</p>

<p>Sort the clothes, put them in the washer. If it takes 30 minutes, come back in 28ish minutes to be there when it's done. Throw in the dryer for an hour and come back in about an hour to get them. I go to a big state school and have NEVER had problems with stuff going missing. If you forget about your stuff in the washer it will get taken out if that's the only washer available but it's not hard to take (at most) 2 hours a day, every week or two, to do your laundry.</p>

<p>Figure out $1.25-$1.85 per load. Maximum would be twice per week which would be $2.50-$3,70, multiply by 12 weeks and that's like less than $80.</p>

<p>Make your decision. You save $200 by doing your own laundry (and laundry detergents are like $6 and they can last almost a whole year). I don't think I save much time especially that I use the machines at off-peak times and consider laundry time as study break. So I go on the computer while I wait for it down in the basement.</p>

<p>Well the way I see it, it's either have your son have somewhat clean clothes versus him piling them on the floor and turning them inside out when he needs to use them again. Unless he can be responsible and clean his own clothes, I say why not?</p>