The hall for free suds
Saturday afternoon is a hectic time for any dorm’s laundry room. But residents who crowd into Elkton Hall’s basement to snatch up the few available machines have an extra incentive: They don’t have to pay.
For an unknown reason, 18 of the 20 washers and dryers in Elkton automatically run for free on Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Theories about the reason for the glitch abound. Freshman government and politics major Corrine Britton said her resident assistant told her the free laundry carried over from a rewards program three or four years ago. Sophomore finance major Noah Elkrief swears the free laundry is a contribution from a nonprofit organization. Other students claim the glitch is an old housekeeping program to keep students from drinking on the weekends or the remainder of a program for rewarding academic success.
An official from Residential Facilities said the free laundry glitch may have something to do with a system installed in a few dorms, including Elkton, a few years ago to let students pay for laundry with their Terrapin Express accounts. The policy proved too expensive to implement in all dorms and was disabled in the pilot dorms.
No sign officially announces laundry is free, though a computer printout with a smiling washer reads, “It’s rude to run the machines with nothing in them in order to reserve the free washers on the weekend.”
Despite the sign, many Elkton residents said they didn’t realize laundry is free on weekends.
“We have free laundry?” sophomore letters and sciences major Jonathan Griffin said. “S—!”
Students are apprehensive about word getting out.
“I was told not to tell anyone,” freshman communication major Carrie Hubbard said. Elkton’s ground floor is already crowded with people on weekend afternoons, and the few who know the secret want to keep it to themselves.
“It’s cutthroat laundry!” Britton said. “That’s the only way to describe it.” Britton said she does her boyfriend’s laundry in addition to her own so he doesn’t have to pay. “People bring whole suitcases of clothes down,” she said.
The wait for the machines — which can be as long as three hours — also results in confrontations between residents. Sophomore prenursing student Kelley Conley recounted teaming up with friends to make sure each other’s machines aren’t stolen, and other regulars said residents “save” dryers by running them on empty while they use the washers.
Hubbard recalled having her clothes taken out of the washer in midcycle when she had left the room. When Britton left her clothes in the dryer for another cycle, another girl angrily confronted her. Britton kept drying the clothes anyway, but said she felt sorry for the girl.
“She had a basket of wet clothes and she’d obviously been waiting a long time. Oh well, the early bird catches the worm,” she said.
Despite the conflicts, Elkton residents count their blessings. “I guess I just got lucky,” Britton said.
