Once upon a time, a dated Wengatz Hall dryer creaked and groaned in pain. Unbeknownst to any of Wengatz Hall’s residents, except for Front Desk Manager Wyatt Wash, the dryer caught fire.
The Men of Wengatz were promptly evacuated and forced, once again, onto the sidewalk, likely believing it was another false alarm. The incident quickly became the talk of campus and only reinforced controversies surrounding the infamous laundry room.
Per Wash, he hurdled the front desk counter, fire extinguisher in hand, and ran into the laundry room. Another resident was already in the room, and Wash handed him the extinguisher to put out the fire.
Across campus, and specifically in Wengatz, washing machines are frequently out of order, and dryers are a fire hazard that adequately dry laundry less than half the time. Along with the equipment's failures, there simply aren't enough of them.
In Wengatz, there are six washers and eight dryers. That amount fails to adequately meet the needs of roughly 260 students. Just this morning, Wengatz sophomore Grant Ford walked down to get his laundry from the dryer (a load that he started at 11:45 p.m. due to availability), only to discover that all of his clothes were still wet.
One washer in particular is a known culprit for soaking and potentially ruining students’ laundry. The washer often malfunctions, drenching clothes, and it has never been fully fixed.
“That one washer is cooked,” Wengatz sophomore Joel Embry said. “I had to dry (my clothes) three times.”
In addition to the aforementioned problems, the washers also melt detergent pods. Students frequently finish loads of laundry, only to discover that their clothes are coated in a plasticky mess.
If the clothes don’t end up permanently stained, they require at least one more washing cycle to remove the residue. While the Men of Wengatz are not laundry experts, it doesn’t seem that clothes should frequently leave the laundry room dirtier than they entered.
Carson Rollison, a Wengatz freshman, uses liquid laundry detergent, which has faults of its own. Not only did he have to redry his clothes due to dryer incompetence, but he also highlighted how the slot for liquid detergent on one of the washers was stained and that it just looked gross.
We need newer equipment and more of it. The lost-and-found table for unwanted clothes takes up an entire section of the laundry room, as does the clothing rack. Both are frequently unused. Getting rid of the table and rack would leave ample space for more washers.
The washers measure about two feet one inch wide, and the dryers are two feet two inches larger. The table and rack in the corner take up nine and a half feet of wall space in width. If those were removed, three more washers or dryers could fit, and potentially even more if they were stacked. In addition, there is already a red donation bin for unwanted clothes that would be sufficient on its own.
With Taylor’s ability to receive grants from generous donors, we feel it would be in the school’s best interest to ask for a donation or use some current funding for new equipment.
“What’s the big idea?” said Wengatz sophomore AJ Richardson.
The campus maintenance workers already have to come and fix the washers and dryers frequently, so why not invest in newer ones? If some changes were made to the layout and equipment, there would be fewer problems for future students and maintenance workers, resulting in less headaches and frustration.
The Men of Wengatz are running out of patience, and changes are needed.
