JACOB KONST/Arizona Daily Wildcat Wendy Ingram, a biochemistry and psychology freshman does laundry at La Paz dormitory yesterday afternoon. The price for doing laundry in the dorms has risen since the installation of CatCard pay stations.

Residence hall washers, dryers to take CatCards, cost more than coin models

Students who live in residence halls might have to start pinching pennies if they want to have clean clothes.

Laundry prices will soon increase by 25 cents in all residence halls and students will have to use CatCards instead of quarters to pay for a load.

By the end of November, all 20 residence halls will have brand new washers and dryers that charge $1 to wash and 75 cents to dry.

While a quarter increase might not sound like much, some students aren't happy about shelling out the extra cents.

"I think it sucks. It's too expensive to do a load," said nursing freshman Nicole Tager while washing her clothes at La Paz residence hall.

La Paz is one of about nine residence halls that already have new machines, said Jim Van Arsdel, director of Residence Life.

Nursing freshman Samantha Gray, another La Paz resident, said she doesn't understand the price increase and doesn't think the new machines are any better than the old ones.

Gray said she doesn't like that the new washing machines are front-loading and can't be opened once you've started a load.

Over the weekend, Gray said she was frustrated when she forgot to put a pair of pants in the washer and was unable to throw them in mid-cycle.

"Now I'm going to have to wait like another week," she said.

Van Arsdel said the front-loading washers are more accessible, particularly for students with disabilities.

"A student in a wheelchair will have a much easier time accessing a front-loading machine," he said.

Van Arsdel said the machines also have more room since they don't have a center agitator.

But La Paz resident Jesse Overlin, a pre-architecture sophomore, said he doesn't notice a change in the machines' capacity.

Overlin also said he dislikes the fact that the machines only accept CatCards.

"If I don't have a dollar bill, I really don't want to put 10 bucks on my smart chip just to do laundry," he said.

Before the new machines were installed, La Paz residents had an option of paying with CatCards or quarters.

Some other residence halls also have this option, while some have machines that operate on quarters only.

Van Arsdel said Residence Life received many requests from residents and the Residence Hall Association to make washers and dryers CatCard compatible, but he said the card option is the primary reason for the price hike.

"As we negotiated with vendors out there, what we found was there was an additional cost with all these card controllers," he said.

Brian Bloodworth, a Manzanita-Mohave resident, said he's glad that Residence Life made the switch.

"I like the convenience of using the CatCard versus trying to find quarters every week," said Bloodworth, a pre-business freshman who does about three loads of laundry a week.

Dance freshman Laura Jaffe, who also lives in the Manzanita-Mohave residence hall, said she's looking forward to getting the new machines.

"I'd rather have the money come from my CatCard and have the machines work better," she said.

Jaffe said the machines in Manzanita-Mohave are in need of replacements. She said she often has to use the dryer twice to get her clothes completely dry.

Van Arsdel said the condition of washers and dryers varies from residence hall to residence hall, but most machines are between seven and 12 years old.

Architecture sophomore Wendoly Abrego, a resident of Apache-Santa Cruz Residence Hall, said that while the CatCard option is a nice feature, she'd rather hunt for quarters than pay more.

"We're already broke enough," she said.

Half of Apache-Santa Cruz's machines have already been replaced, and Abrego said she is enjoying using the remaining, less expensive machines while she can.

Villa del Puente resident Drew Tucker, an architecture sophomore, said he doesn't think the CatCard readers on the new machines are very reliable.

Tucker said he recently had to go to another residence hall to dry his clothes when a card reader on a Villa del Puente dryer broke.

Van Arsdel said nothing that is mechanical is ever perfect, adding that he doesn't think the card readers will cause a big problem.

All halls will receive new machines because of the terms of Residence Life's contract with laundry vendor Web Laundry, Van Arsdel said.

Machines are being replaced in phases, and all halls should have new machines by the end of November, he said.

This is the first time laundry prices have increased in residence halls since the mid-1980s, Van Arsdel said.