The typical Simmons laundry experience is separated into three main steps: finding available facilities, using the washer, and using the dryer.
Finding Available Facilities:
MacGray has a website to indicate which washers and dryers are free at any point in time. Residents are able to check that website and then take their laundry on a series of elevators and/or stairs to reach the laundry room that is currently available and closest to them. However, there are cases where the website indicates that there are facilities available when that is not actually the case. Machines are marked available online as soon as the cycle is over, but sometimes there are still clothes inside the machine afterwards. This is not currently indicated on the website, so users are often disappointed to encounter this and are forced to remove other people's clothes from the laundry machines and place them elsewhere. This is especially difficult if it's laundry that has just been washed and is still wet. Sometimes multiple people will go to the laundry room at the same time to try and use an available machine. This leads to uncomfortable interactions with fellow residents as they try to claim a washer or dryer. Occasionally, machines that are out of order are also marked as available online. As a result, residents are forced to find a new laundry room or use multiple laundry rooms at the same time if they started one load of laundry before discovering that the other machine was broken.
Washing Machines:
Washing machines in Simmons are found in pairs of two around the building. They have specific compartments for detergent, bleach, and fabric softener with labels on the machine indicating where to pour each solution. There are also two separate posters on the wall that shows compartments and where to pour each solution, but neither poster matches the label on and compartments of the machine. Additionally, many users use detergent pods, but only one of the three sets of detergent instructions in the room indicates where to put those pods. As a result, people often put them in the detergent compartment when they are actually supposed to go into the machine along with the clothing. This causes the pods to explode and leave residue in the compartments. One user mentioned that she has skin allergies to many of the perfumes used in detergent, so when those detergent residues from pods are left in the machine, they get onto her clothes in the wash and subsequently irritate her skin.
The laundry room is fairly dark, so it is very difficult to see the lines inside of detergent lids that suggest the amount of detergent to use. Though there is plenty of signage around the room that suggests using less detergent than the listed amount or specifies measurements in tablespoons, there are no measuring tools available and it is too dark to see the standard lines. There is also no clear indication of how full the washer can be, and different people (as interviewed) had vastly different ideas on how big a single load of laundry in the washing machine could be. It is possible that some users may not be doing laundry effectively, but there is no way to communicate this to them.
The final step in the laundry process is drying clothes. The dryers are stacked on top of each other instead of next to each other like the washers. Consequently, many residents are not tall enough to see into the top dryer fully. Several users commented on the difficulty of not being able to see if you have removed all of your clothes when you have finished drying them in the top dryer. Additionally, since the dryers are stacked and not labeled clearly, it is often difficult to tell which control set maps to the top and which to the bottom and people sometimes pay for and/or start the wrong dryer before realizing their mistake. At that point, it is too late to cancel and users are forced to pay for a second load. This also prevents someone else from using a dryer.
Some of the numbering schemes of the machines are also counterintuitive. In the 7th floor laundry room, the one closest to my room on the 9th floor, the machines are labeled 4, 3, 2, 1 from left to right. Since you have to type in the number on the TechCash machine, it is easy to get confused and assume that the machines are labeled 1, 2, 3, 4 instead. This would again result in paying for the wrong machine. Additionally, some of the labels on the machines are peeling off, which makes it even more difficult to tell what the correct number is.
This room also has a problem where one of the dryers only takes quarters instead of TechCash. If you load your laundry into the dryer and go to pay with TechCash, it tells you the dryer is already in use (as shown in the photographs below). This is very confusing and frustrating when you have to wait until the last step in the process to learn that you cannot use the machine with TechCash. In fact, I did not learn that the machine took quarters until I heard so when interviewing another user!
