On September 28th, the Barlow laundry room started to smoke and caused the students to evacuate. A week later the washing machine in the Village Quad 3 did the same.

The cause behind both cases was that the belt on the machines were worn out and started to get heated up which lead it to start smoking.

“There’s no actual fire, it’s just a belt starting to melt,” says John Schmaltz, the director of Public Safety.

Over the summer all the laundry rooms on campus were given a make over, including new machines that allowed students to no longer need to pay to use it directly. However, while the laundry room may have gotten an upgrade, it seems that these new machines may not be up to standards.

“It could be a one off, something bad came from the factory, it does not look like vandalism, it looks it was a mechanical problem,” said Michael Malone, the assistant vice president for Residential Life.

When the machine in the 3s originally broke, it was both unplugged and had a sign on it that said for it to not be used. However, a student didn’t listen and used it again anyway which caused for a second fire alarm to go off.

“Mac-Gray is working on fixing it,” said Malone. “[They will] either repair or replace the machine just to resolve the issue.”

Max Koskoff, resident director for the Village Apartments sent out a statement saying, “If you notice a problem, this (http://www.macgray.com/laundrylinx/index.cgi?Action=Pass&password=uofhart) is the only place to report it as this is the company who control the washers and dryers. Residential Life nor Facilities has control over these machines.”

Students can also report problems with any washers or dryers in their respective residential halls or buildings by calling the MacGray phone number at 1-800-622-4729.