Murray State students living on the 7th floor of Hart Residential College temporarily lost access to their laundry room in response to arguments between residents.
Hart College is the largest residence hall on campus, housing as many as 534 students at any given time, according to the university’s website. As of fall 2024, it cost students $3,021 to live in a double room in Hart College per semester.
“One of the benefits (of) going to Hart was the easy access to laundry,” an anonymous source said. “So then you’re suddenly taking away what I expected when I paid for my dorm. That was a big argument for us—like, I paid for this. This was implied to be in my housing bill. It was easy access to the laundry machines for my designated floor, so removing that is not so good.”
Due to residents arguing in the 7th floor chat room on GroupMe, laundry room privileges were revoked on Sunday, Sept. 15 and access may be returned at the end of the week, as students were told by Resident Advisors and in an email addressed to residents living on the 7th floor. On the day following this announcement, the floor-wide GroupMe was disbanded after an uproar of disapproval from residents over the decision.
“I think that it could cause some communication issues,” the anonymous source said. “It could cause future issues with (announcing) floor meetings (when) suddenly we don’t have an ability to post that anywhere. Maybe they would have to put up flyers, but people don’t read flyers all the time.”
The anonymous source said other communication issues could arise between residents and their advisors.
“Now there is no way to really communicate. Unless you go directly to their door, there is no way to bring up your concerns. And that’s intimidating, you know, not a lot of people would be willing to just knock on an RA’s door and talk with them individually,” the anonymous source said. “They may just be students, right? But they’re still in a position of power over you, so it can be considered intimidating to go knock and have a one-on-one conversation with them.”
Students living on the 7th floor are still permitted to use the laundry facilities on the lower floors during this time; however, some still disagree with the decision.
“They have you write your (room) number and name on the (laundry room) board and you could see that multiple girls from the 7th floor are starting to crowd the lower laundry levels and their (laundry) is starting to stack up in floors that aren’t their own,” the anonymous source said. “I had to start (wearing) clothes I wasn’t particularly fond of wearing, and then I just had to suck it up and do (laundry) anyway. I had to go down and inconvenience other people too. That’s embarrassing because we’re the floor that got our laundry taken.”
“I thought it was unjustified because it’s a form of punishment that punished everybody on the floor when the problem was two or three specific people,” the anonymous source said. “I’ve talked to a lot of people about it, and they believe in the same thing I do: that it’s unjustified.”
The Housing Office declined to provide an official statement on the temporary loss of access to the 7th floor laundry facilities in Hart College.
