New feature allows students to track the status of their clothes

Free use of laundry machines in College Houses lets students save money when they wash their clothes. And with new online alerts that track the status of washers and dryers, students will be able to conserve their time as well.

The new service, called Laundry Alert, lets residents check the status of laundry machines in their building.

"Laundry Alert was one of a series of laundry service enhancements that were introduced this year for students," said Doug Berger, Executive Director of Housing Services. "Others include installing more energy efficient machines that offer 32 percent greater capacity than conventional washers."

Residents can check the status of laundry machines by signing into laundryalert.com, where they can view how many machines are in use and approximately how much time is left on busy machines.

Students can also sign up to receive e-mail alerts telling them when their machine is finished and when a washer or dryer becomes available.

College sophomore Gregory Wall said the new system has helped make "doing laundry incredibly convenient," and he hopes that students will utilize the technology.

"Laundry Alert doesn't directly resolve the problem of people leaving their laundry in the washers in dryers and picking it up at the end of the night," Wall said. "But it definitely offers services like the e-mail alerts which can potentially mitigate those types of frustrations."

Cornell University already offers a similar service, which students say saves time and effort.

"It's really convenient to be able to check the availability of the machines online, and it saves a lot of time because you know exactly when there will be free machines," said Kristen Dilzell, a sophomore at Cornell University.

Business Services spokesperson Barba Lea-Kruger said the system at Penn is off to a good start.

"Because the system is new, there have been a few glitches reported which we are addressing, but overall, the response from students has been positive," she wrote in an e-mail.

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