Recently, our apartment building management made a deal with the devil to outsource the laundry facilities (and the visitor parking, which we now have to pay for and is a whole other story!) to Coinamatic. They’re front-loading, high efficiency dealies paid for with smartcards loaded through an Interac (debit) machine located in the facilities. There was an orientation in which a Coinamatic spokesman came by to teach us how to use the new machines. He gushed on about how the washers are 50% larger, we’ll save money by using less detergent, the dryers are gas heated and need less time to dry, and all sorts of other things while he showed us the convoluted steps to loading the smartcards and using the machines.
Unfortunately, almost the entire presentation was a fetid train of Cleaveland steamers, and I’m not at all happy. This is the E-Mail I just sent to Coinamatic’s Customer Care E-Mail address to voice my displeasure with their “services”:
To say what I can’t say in the E-Mail in order to maintain some level of professionalism: Fuck you, Coinamatic. Fuck you with the tepid gas pipes feeding your dryers. Fuck you with a stack of empty smartcards. Fuck you with the year’s worth of money I’ll have “saved” using your machines. In pennies. Fuck you with a pack of wet socks fresh from one of your “drying” sessions. And while I’m at it, fuck you with every single one of your blasted parking meters that no one wants to use because no one wants to pay for visitor parking at an apartment building you useless sacks of opportunistic vomit-gargling, monkey-diddling, kitten-stomping, money-grubbing, colon-sniffing cocktwaddles. Go eat a bag of dicks.
Yeah, I think you might have better results by taking your complaints to the property managers. To Coinamatic, you’re a ten-dollar customer who would have to go to a lot of effort to take your business somewhere else. The the property, you’re a rent check every month. If Coinamatic hasn’t kept they’re promises to them, they have a little more clout to do something about it.
Go to a laundromat, and encourage your neighbors to do the same. Voting with your feet – if everyone does so, is effective. They won’t keep the machines there if there’s no profit. And it’s better for you to go elsewhere if staying is so frustrating. (I know I’ve gone the laundromat route at two of the apartments I’ve had.)
My old building’s laundry had one feature that really pissed me off. You had to put in $1 to get the dryer to start, let’s say 40 minutes, and could add 10 minutes for each additional quarter. Of course, if the dryer stopped and your clothes weren’t quite dry, that’s another buck just to get it going again.
We usually used the laundromat.
Definitely complain to the property manager. You can also call coinamatic repair service every time the dryer fails to dry your clothes and tell them the thing isn’t operating correctly, and demand your money back.
Unfortunately, there is no coin laundry facilities within anything remotely resembling a reasonable distance from here. Furthermore, I don’t drive, so … yeah. I’m stuck railing with an impotent fury. But they don’t know that.
WE have been told that any concerns we have about the machines should be directed to Coinamatic, so that’s where I went first – but if I don’t hear anything good from them you can bet my damp ass I’ll be taking it to the property managers. They’re the ones who made the deal with these shysters (sheissekopfs?), after all.
And yes, they charge for hot water.
Base price of a wash is $2.25. (Yes…) Want hot water instead of warm? An extra dime. Heavy or heavily-soiled load? An extra dime. Cold water? Well, then they’ll give you a dime back.
Yes, the system is truly the death-by-a-thousand-papercuts of the laundry industry.
Who cares what they tell you? The managers are the ones you should be mad at. They’re the ones who have the clout to get something done. They’re the ones collecting your rent. They’re the ones with a direct interest in keeping you happy. Whine, bitch, and moan at them until they’re completely fed up and do something. If they won’t, leave. Those are your options. And for what it’s worth, I’d be absolutely livid if I were in your position.
I don’t know about you, but for me the idea that one can “just move” is just preposterous. The last time I moved, packing, unpacking, renting a van, and paying the broker fee added up to fuck lot more time and money that a dollar or two increase at the laundry. And this was just for a studio apartment. Do you live in a flophouse?