Tired of broken washing machines? Sick of struggling with dryers not drying clothes?
Student Government Association, in conjunction with the Department of Residence Life and Facilities Services, met with Coinmach Corp. to install new laundry machines throughout most of campus by next year.
Nick Fagan, Business School senator, arranged the meeting based on complaints he had been hearing from students.
“After being a residential student for four years, I have heard the comments and complaints of numerous students, and I have experienced problems myself,” Fagan said.
In the meeting, which continued discussions begun by Residence Life, three Coinmach representatives met with SGA President Mike Cappel, Fagan, Director of Housing, Argyle Wade, and Facility Services Supervisors Barth Breneman and Joe Steen.
Coinmach is the largest laundry-service provider in the country and operates more than 90 washers and dryers on campus. Their contract with the University will expire in August 2004.
“The basic complaint was that the service being provided did not live up to the student’s expectations,” Fagan explained. “This was a result of poor machinery, maintenance, or our students’ lack of education on how to use these machines properly.”
Brian Altenofen, a senior residing in Marchetti Towers, added, “Some machines work, and others don’t. It is those machines that don’t that are causing major problems because students don’t know that they don’t work, put their laundry in the machine and don’t get the results they are looking for.”
Garry Campbell, regional vice president for Coinmach, understood the complaints presented by the students and said that his company would be replacing all the machines that need to be replaced.
At the moment, Cappel believes the larger laundry facilities will be replaced first, including Marchetti Towers, Griesedieck Complex, Marguerite Hall and Reinert Hall. But, he added, any other broken machines can also be replaced.
Prior to the meeting, Wade had already gotten Coinmach to agree to replacements in Griesedieck and Marchetti.
Wade said, “The collaboration of SGA, Facility Services and Residence Life allowed us-the University community-to walk away from the meeting with many more concessions from the company than any of us would have achieved individually.”
New to the area, Campbell is striving to improve services to the Saint Louis University students.
“We want to make the facilities more user-friendly and workable for students,” said Campbell. “We want to make our consumers happy.”
As a part of this improved service, Coinmach will also be installing handicap-accessible machines on the first floor of Fusz Hall.
New signage, in English, Spanish and even some Braille, will be placed in all laundry facilities instructing students how to contact Coinmach and how to do their laundry properly.
According to Campbell, Coinmach will also distribute pamphlets to all residents on campus next year explaining how to do laundry. Free detergent and softener will be given out as well.
One other idea being considered by Coinmach is to have “free laundry days” where a Coinmach representative is on-site to help students do their laundry properly.
In addition, new repair schedules were also set.
Instead of cleaning vents once a year, the cleaning will be done by both Facilities Services and Coinmach twice yearly.
Campbell said a big push will be made so that students have better ways to communicate problems with the laundry facilities, including e-mail addresses and a special SLU voice mailbox.
“If we don’t know it’s broken, we can’t fix it,” Campbell said.
Overall, Cappel and Fagan were both pleased with the outcome of their meeting.
“Senator Fagan did his homework,” said Cappel. “This was a success for SGA and the students at large.”
Nick Sarcone, chair of SGA Residential Concerns Committee, said, “I’m ecstatic about the fact that we were able to complete successful negotiations with Coinmach, so that we all can finally clean and dry our clothes in one cycle!”
